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THE STORY OF WAITSTILL BAXTER. Illustrated. 
MOTHER CAREY’S CHICKENS. Illustrated. 

ROBINETTA. Illustrated. 

SUSANNA AND SUE. Illustrated. 

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THE STORY OF PATSY. Illustrated. 

THE DIARY OF A GOOSE GIRL. Illustrated. 

A CATHEDRAL COURTSHIP, and PENELOPE’S ENG- 
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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
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TIMOTHY’S QUEST 


A STORY FOR ANYBODY, YOUNG OR OLD, 
WHO CARES TO READ IT 


BY 

KATE DOUGLAS ^yiGGIN 

AUTHOR OF “ BIRDS* CHRISTMAS CAROL,” “ THB STORY OF PATSY," 
“A SUMMER IN A CANON,” BTC. 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
fltoerjrtbe tU Cambri&oe 



COPYRIGHT, 1890 , BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
COPYRIGHT, 1918 , BY KATE DOUGLAS RIGGS 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


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Ut 


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€ 


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NORA 


DEAREST SISTER, STERNEST CRITIC 


BEST FRIEND 














































♦ 

































* 


I 




9 













CONTENTS. 


SCENE L 

FAO» 

Flossy Morrison learns the Secret of Death 

WITHOUT EVER HA VINO LEARNED THE SECRET 


of Life 7 

SCENE n. 

Little Timothy Jessup assumes Parental Re- 
sponsibilities 17 

SCENE III. 


Timothy plans a Campaign, and Providence 

MATERIALLY ASSISTS IN CARRYING IT OUT, OR 


VICE VERSA 26 

SCENE IV. 

Jabe Slocum assumes the Role of Guardian 
Angel 39 


SCENE V. 

Timothy finds a House in which he thinks a 
Baby is needed, but the Inmates do not 


entirely agree with Him 61 

SCENE VI. 

Timothy, Lady Gay, and Rags prove faithful 
to one another 63 


iv 


CONTENTS. 


SCENE VII. 

Mistress and Maid find to their Amazement 
that a Child, more than all other Gifts, 
brings Hope with it, and forward look- 
ing Thoughts 74 

SCENE VIII. 

Jabe and Samantha exchange Hostilities, and 
the former says a Good Word for the 
Little Wanderers 87 

SCENE IX. 

“ Now the End of the Commandment is Char- 
ity, out of a Pure Heart ”... 100 

SCENE X. 

Aunt Hitty comes to “ make over,'* and sup- 
plies Back Numbers to all the Village 
Histories 112 

SCENE XI. 

Miss Vilda decides that Two is One too many, 
and Timothy breaks a Humming-Bird’s Egg 12k 

SCENE XH. 

Lyddy Pettigroye’s Funeral 143 

SCENE XIII. 

Pleasant River is baptized with the Spirit of 
Adoption . . . 152 

SCENE XIV. 

Timothy Jessup runs away a Second Time, 

AND, LIKE OTHER BLESSINGS, BRIGHTENS AS 

He takes his Flic arc 160 


CONTENTS. 


V 


SCENE XV. 

Like all Dogs in Fiction, the Faithful Rags 
guides Miss Vilda to his Little Master . 179 

SCENE XVI. 

Timothy’s Quest is ended, and Samantha says, 
“Come along, Dave” • • 189 






TIMOTHY’S QUEST. 

SCENE I. 

Number Three , Minerva Court . First floor 
front 

FLOSSY MORRISON LEARNS THE SECRET OF 
DEATH WITHOUT EVER HAVING LEARNED THE 
SECRET OF LIFE. 

Minerva Court ! Veil thy face, O God- 
dess of Wisdom, for never, surely, was thy 
fair name so ill bestowed as when it was ap- 
plied to this most dreary place ! 

It was a little less than street, a little 
more than alley, and its only possible claim 
to decency came from comparison with the 
busier thoroughfare out of which it opened. 
This was so much fouler, with its dirt and 
noise, its stands of refuse fruit and vege- 
tables, its dingy shops and all the miserable 
traffic that the place engendered, its rickety 
doorways blocked with lounging men, its 


8 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


Blowsabellas leaning on the window-sills, 
that the Court seemed by contrast a most 
desirable and retired place of residence. 

But it was a dismal spot, nevertheless, 
with not even an air of faded gentility to 
recommend it. It seemed to have no better 
days behind it, nor to hold within itself the 
possibility of any future improvement. It 
was narrow, and extended only the length 
of a city block, yet it was by no means want- 
ing in many of those luxuries which mark 
this era of modern civilization. There were 
groceries, with commodious sample-rooms 
attached, at each corner, and a small saloon, 
called “ The Dearest Spot ” (which it un- 
doubtedly was in more senses than one), in 
the basement of a house at the farther end. 
It was necessary, however, for the bibulous 
native who dwelt in the middle of the block 
to waste some valuable minutes in dragging 
himself to one of these fountains of bliss at 
either end ; so at the time my story opens 
a wide-awake philanthropist was fitting up 
a neat and attractive little bar-room, called 
“ The Oasis,” at a point equally distant be- 
tween the other two springs of human joy. 

This benefactor of humanity had a vault- 
ing ambition. He desired to slake the thirst 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


9 


of every man in Christendom; but this 
being impossible from the very nature of 
things, he determined to settle in some arid 
spot like Minerva Court, and irrigate it so 
sweetly and copiously that all men’s noses 
would blossom as the roses. To supply his 
brothers’ wants, and create new ones at the 
same time, was his purpose in establishing 
this Oasis in the Desert of Minerva Court ; 
and it might as well be stated here that he 
was prospered in his undertaking, as any 
man is sure to be who cherishes lofty ideals 
and attends to his business industriously. 

The Minerva Courtier thus had good rea- 
son to hope that the supply of liquid refresh- 
ment would bear some relation to the de- 
mand ; and that the march of modern prog- 
ress would continue to diminish the distance 
between his own mouth and that of the bot- 
tle, which, as he took it, was the be-all and 
end-all of existence. 

At present, however, as the Oasis was 
not open to the public, children carrying 
pitchers of beer were often to be seen hurry- 
ing to and fro on their miserable errands. 
But there were very few children in Mi- 
nerva Court, thank God ! — they were not 
popular there. There were frowzy, sleepy- 


10 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


looking women hanging out of their win- 
dows, gossiping with their equally unkempt 
and haggard neighbors ; apathetic men sit- 
ting on the doorsteps, in their shirt-sleeves, 
smoking ; a dull, dirty baby or two disport- 
ing itself in the gutter ; while the sound of 
a melancholy accordion (the chosen instru- 
ment of poverty and misery) floated from 
an upper chamber, and added its discordant 
mite to the general desolation. 

The sidewalks had apparently never known 
the touch of a broom, and the middle of the 
street looked more like an elongated junk- 
heap than anything else. Every smell known 
to the nostrils of man wa3 abroad in the 
air, and several were floating about waiting 
modestly to be classified, after which they 
intended to come to the front and outdo the 
others if they could. 

That was Minerva Court ! A little piece 
of your world, my world, God’s world (and 
the Devil’s), lying peacefully fallow, await- 
ing the services of some inspired Home Mis- 
sionary Society. 

In a front room of Number Three, a dilap- 
idated house next the corner, there lay a 
still, white shape, with two women watching 
by it. 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . fl 

A sheet covered it. Candles burned at 
the head, striving to throw a gleam of light 
on a dead face that for many a year had 
never been illuminated from within by the 
brightness of self-forgetting love or kindly 
sympathy. If you had raised the sheet, you 
would have seen no happy smile as of a half- 
remembered, innocent childhood ; the smile 
— is it of peaceful memory or serene antici- 
pation ? — that sometimes shines on the faces 
of the dead. 

Such life-secrets as were exposed by 
Death, and written on that still countenance 
in characters that all might read, were pain- 
ful ones. Flossy Morrison was dead. The 
name “Flossy” was a relic of what she 
termed her better days (Heaven save the 
mark !), for she had been called Mrs. Morri- 
son of late years, — “ Mrs. F. Morrison,” 
who took “ children to board, and no ques- 
tions asked ” — nor answered. She had 
lived forty-five years, as men reckon sum- 
mers and winters ; but she had never learned, 
in all that time, to know her Mother, Na- 
ture, her Father, God, nor her brothers and 
sisters, the children of the world. She had 
lived friendless and unfriendly, keeping 
none of the ten commandments, nor yet the 


12 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


eleventh, which is the greatest of all ; and 
now there was no human being to slip a 
flower into the still hand, to kiss the clay- 
eold lips at the remembrance of some sweet 
word that had fallen from them, or drop a 
tear and say, “ I loved her ! ” 

Apparently, the two watchers did not re- 
gard Flossy Morrison even in the light oT 
“ the dear remains,” as they are sometimes 
called at country funerals. They were in 
the best of spirits (there was an abundance 
of beer), and their gruesome task would be 
over in a few hours ; for it was nearly four 
o’clock in the morning, and the body was to 
be taken away at ten. 

“ I tell you one thing, Ettie, Flossy has n’t. 
left any bother for her friends,” remarked 
Mrs. Nancy Simmons, settling herself back 
in her rocking-chair. “ As she did n’t own 
anything but the clothes on her back, there 
won’t be any quarreling over the property ! 
and she chuckled at her delicate humor. 

“ No,” answered her companion, who, 
whatever her sponsors in baptism had chris- 
tened her, called herself Ethel Montmorency. 
“ I s’pose the furniture, poor as it is, will 
pay the funeral expenses ; and if she ’s got 
any debts, why, folks will have to whistle 
for their money, that ’s all.” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 13 

“ The only thing that worries me is the 
children,” said Mrs. Simmons. 

“ You must be hard up for something to 
worry about, to take those young ones on 
your mind. They ain’t yours nor mine, and 
what ’s more, nobody knows who they do be» 
long to, and nobody cares. Soon as break- 
fast ’s over we ’ll pack ’em off to some insti- 
tution or other, and that ’ll be the end of it. 
What did Flossy say about ’em, when you 
spoke to her yesterday ? ” 

44 I asked her what she wanted done with 
the young ones, and she said, 4 Do what you 
like with ’em, drat ’em, — it don’t make no 
odds to me ! ’ and then she turned over and 
died. Those was the last words she spoke, 
dear soul ; but, Lor’, she was n’t more ’n 
half sober, and had n’t been for a week.” 

44 She was sober enough to keep her own 
counsel, I can tell you that,” said the gentle 
Ethel. 44 1 don’t believe there ’s a living 
soul that knows where those children came 
from ; — not that anybody cares, now that 
there ain’t any money in ’em.” 

44 Well, as for that, I only know that when 
Flossy was seeing better days and lived in 
the upper part of the city, she used to have 
money come every month for taking care of 


14 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST 


the boy. Where it come from I don’t know ; 
but I kind of surmise it was a long distance 
off. Then she took to drinking, and got 
lower and lower down until she came here, 
six months ago. I don’t suppose the boy’s 
folks, or whoever it was sent the money, 
knew the way she was living, though they 
couldn’t have cared much, for they never 
came to see how things were ; and he was in 
an asylum before Flossy took him, I found 
that out ; but, anyhow, the money stopped 
coming three months ago. Flossy wrote 
twice to the folks, whoever they were, but 
did n’t get no answer to her letters ; and she 
told me that she should turn the boy out in 
a week or two if the payments were not 
made by that time. She would n’t have 
kept him so long as this if he had n’t been 
so handy taking care of the baby.” 

“ Well, who does the baby belong to? ” 

“ You ask me too much,” replied Nancy, 
taking another deep draught from the 
pitcher. “ Help yourself, Ettie ; there ’s 
plenty more where that came from. Flossy 
never liked the boy, and always wanted to 
get rid of him, but could n’t afford to. He ’s 
a dreadful queer, old-fashioned little kid, 
and so smart that he ’s gettin’ to be a reg’la~ 


TIMOTHY* S QUEST . 


15 


nuisance round the house. But you see he 
and the baby, — Gabrielle ’s her name, but 
they call her Lady Gay, or some such trash, 
after that actress that comes here so much, 
j — well, they are so in love with each other 
that wild horses could n’t drag ’em apart ; 
and I think Flossy had a kind of a likin’ for 
Gay, as much as she ever had for anything. 
I guess she never abused either of ’em ; she 
was too careless for that. And so — what 
was I talkin’ about? Oh, yes. Well, I 
don’t know who the baby is, nor who paid 
for her keep ; but she ’s goin’ to be one o’ 
your high-steppers, and no mistake. She 
might be Queen Victory’s daughter by the 
airs she puts on ; I ’d like to keep her my- 
self if she was a little older, and I was n’t 
goin’ away from here.” 

“ I s’pose they ’ll make an awful row at 
being separated, won’t they ? ” asked the 
younger woman. 

“ Oh, like as not ; but they ’ll have to 
have their row and get over it,” said Mrs. 
Simmons easily. “ You can take Timothy 
to the Orphan Asylum first, and then come 
back, and I ’ll carry the baby to the Home 
of the Ladies’ Relief and Protection So- 
eiety; and if they yell they can yell, and 


16 


TIMOTHY’S QUEST. 


take it out in yellin’; they won’t get the 
best of Nancy Simmons.” 

“ Don’t talk so loud, Nancy, for mercy’s 
sake. If the boy hears you, he ’ll begin to 
take on, and we sha’n’t get a wink of sleep. 
Don’t let ’em know what you ’re goin’ to do 
with ’em till the last minute, or you ’ll have 
trouble as sure as we sit here.” 

“ Oh, they are sound asleep,” responded 
Mrs. Simmons, with an uneasy look at the 
half-open door. “ I went in and dragged a 
pillow out from under Timothy’s head, and 
he never budged. He was sleepin’ like a 
log, and so was Gay. Now, shut up, Et, 
and let me get three winks myself. You 
take the lounge, and I ’ll stretch out in two 
chairs. Wake me up at eight o’clock, if I 
don’t wake myself ; for I ’m clean tired out 
with all this fussin’ and plannin’, and I feel 
stupid enough to sleep till kingdom come.” 


SCENE n. 


Number Three , Minerva Court . First Jioov 
back . 

LITTLE TIMOTHY JESSUP ASSUMES PARENTAL 
RESPONSIBILITIES. 

When the snores of the two watchers fell 
on the stillness of the death-chamber, with 
that cheerful regularity that betokens the 
sleep of the truly good, a quiet figure crept 
out of the bed in the adjoining room and 
closed the door noiselessly, but with trem- 
bling fingers ; stealing then to the window 
to look out at the dirty street and the gray 
sky over which the first faint streaks of 
dawn were beginning to creep. 

It was little Timothy Jessup (God alone 
knows whether he had any right to that 
special patronymic), but not the very same 
Tim Jessup who had kissed the baby Gay 
in her little crib, and gone to sleep on his 
own hard bed in that room, a few hours be- 
fore. As he stood shivering at the window, 


18 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


one thin hand hard pressed upon his heart 
to still its beating, there was a light of sud- 
den resolve in his eyes, a new-born look of 
anxiety on his unchildlike face. 

“ I will not have Gay protectioned and 
reliefed, and I will not be taken away from 
her and sent to a ’sylum, where I can never 
find her again ! ” and with these defiant 
words trembling, half spoken, on his lips, 
he glanced from the unconscious form in the 
crib to the terrible door, which might open 
at any moment and divide him from his 
heart’s delight, liis darling, his treasure, his 
only joy, his own, own baby Gay. 

But what should he do ? Run away : that 
was the only solution of the matter, and no 
very difficult one either. The cruel women 
were asleep ; the awful Thing that had 
been Flossy would never speak again ; and 
no one else in Minerva Court cared enough 
for them to pursue them very far or very 
long. 

“ And so,” thought Timothy swiftly, “ X 
will get things ready, take Gay, and steal 
softly out of the back door, and run away 
to the ‘ truly 9 country, where none of these 
bad people ever can find us, and where I 
can get a mother for Gay; somebody to 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 19 

f dopt her and love her till I grow up a man 
and take her to live with me.” 

The moment this thought darted into 
Timothy’s mind, it began to shape itself in 
definite action. 

Gabrielle, or Lady Gay, as Flossy called 
her, in honor of her favorite stage heroine, 
had been tumbled into her crib half dressed 
the night before. The only vehicle kept for 
her use in the family stables was a clothes- 
basket, mounted on four wooden w jeels and 
cushioned with a dingy shawl. A yard of 
clothes-line was tied on one end of it, and in 
this humble conveyance the Princess would 
have to be transported from the Ogre’s cas- 
tle ; for she was scarcely old enough to ac- 
company the Prince on foot, even if he had 
dared to risk detection by waking her: so 
the clothes-basket must be her chariot, and 
Timothy her charioteer, as on many a less 
fateful expedition. 

After he had changed his ragged night- 
gown for a shabby suit of clothes, he took 
Gay’s one clean apron out of a rickety 
bureau drawer (“ for I can never find a 
mother for her if she’s too dirty,” he 
thought), her Sunday hat from the same 
receptacle, and last of all a comb, and a 


20 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


faded Japanese parasol that stood in a cor- 
ner. These he deposited under the old 
shawl that decorated the floor of the chariot. 
He next groped his way in the dim light 
toward a mantelshelf, and took down a sav- 
ings - bank, — a florid little structure with 
46 Bank of England ” stamped over the minia- 
ture door, into which the jovial gentleman 
who frequented the house often slipped 
pieces o J1 silver for the children, and into 
which E *ssy dipped only when she was in a 
state of t mporary financial embarrassment. 
Timothy aid not dare to jingle it ; he could 
only hope that as Flossy had not been in her 
usual health of late (though in more than 
her usual “ spirits ”), she had not felt 
obliged to break the bank. 

Now for provisions. There were plenty 
of “ funeral baked meats ” in the kitchen ; 
and he hastily gathered a dozen cookies into 
a towel, and stowed them in the coach with 
the other sinews of war. 

So far, well and good ; but the worst was 
to come. With his heart beating in his 
bosom like a trip-hammer, and his eyes di- 
lated with fear, he stepped to the door be« 
tween the two rooms, and opened it softly. 
Two thundering snores, pitched in such di& 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


21 


ferent keys that they must have proceeded 
from two separate sets of nasal organs, reas- 
sured the boy. He looked out into the alley. 
“ Not a creature was stirring, not even a 
mouse.” The Minerva Courtiers could n’t 
be owls and hawks too, and there was not 
even the ghost of a sound to be heard. Satis- 
fied that all was well, Timothy went back to 
the bedroom, and lifted the battered clothes- 
basket, trucks and all, in his slender arms, 
carried it up the alley and down the street 
a little distance, and deposited it on the 
pavement beside a vacant lot. This done, 
he sped back to the house. “ How beauti- 
fully they snore ! ” he thought, as he stood 
again on the threshold. “ Shall I leave ’em 
a ^tter ? . . . P’raps I better . . . and then 
they won’t follow us and bring us back.” So 
he scribbled a line on a bit of torn paper 
bag, and pinned it on the enemies’ door. 

“A kind Lady is goin to Adopt 
us it is a Grate ways off so do not 
Hunt good by. Tim.” 

Now all was ready. No ; one thing more. 
Timothy had been met in the street by a 
pretty young girl a few weeks before. The 


22 


TIMOTHY S QUEST. 


love of God was smiling in her heart, the 
love of children shining in her eyes ; and 
she led him, a willing captive, into a mission 
Sunday-school near by. And so much in 
earnest was the sweet little teacher, and so 
hungry for any sort of good tidings was the 
starved little pupil, that Timothy “ got re- 
ligion ” then and there, as simply and nat- 
urally as a child takes its mother’s milk. 
He was probably in a state of crass igno- 
rance regarding the Thirty-nine Articles ; but 
it was the “ engrafted word,” of which the 
Bible speaks, that had blossomed in Tim- 
othy’s heart ; the living seed had always been 
there, waiting for some beneficent fostering 
influence ; for he was what dear Charles Lamb 
would have called a natural “ kingdom-of- 
heavenite.” Thinking, therefore, of Miss 
Dora’s injunction to pray over all the ex- 
traordinary affairs of life and as many of the 
ordinary ones as possible, he hung his tattered 
straw hat on the bedpost, and knelt beside 
Gay’s crib with this whispered prayer : — 

“ Our Father who art in heaven, please 
help me to find a mother for Gay, one that 
she can call Mamma, and another one for 
me, if there ’$ enough, hut not unless . 
Please excuse me for taking away the 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


23 


clothes-basket , which does not exactly belong 
to us ; but if I do not take it , dear heavenly 
Father , how will I get Gay to the railroad f 
And if I don't take the Japanese umbrella 
she will get freckled , and nobody will adopt 
her on account of her red hair . No more at 
present , as I am in a great hurry. Amen.” 

He put on his hat, stooped over the sleep- 
ing baby, and took her in his faithful arms, 
— arms that had never failed her yet. She 
half opened her eyes, and seeing that she 
was safe on her beloved Timothy’s shoulder, 
clasped her dimpled arms tight about his 
neck, and with a long sigh drifted off again 
into the land of dreams. Bending beneath 
her weight, he stepped for the last time 
across the threshold, not even daring to 
close the door behind him. 

Up the alley and round the corner he 
sped, as fast as his trembling legs could 
carry him. Just as he was within sight of 
the goal of his ambition, that is, the chariot 
aforesaid, he fancied he heard the sound of 
hurrying feet behind him. To his fevered 
imagination the tread was like that of an 
avenging army on the track of the foe. He 
did not dare to look behind. On ! for the 
clothes-basket and liberty 1 He would re* 


24 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


linquisk the Japanese umbrella, the cookies, 
the comb, and the apron, — all the booty, in 
fact, — as an inducement for the enemy to 
retreat, but he would never give up the pris- 
oner. 

On the feet hurried, faster and faster,, 
He stooped to put Gay in the basket, and 
turned in despair to meet his pursuers, 
when a little, grimy, rough-coated, lop-eared, 
split-tailed thing, like an animated rag-bag, 
leaped upon his knees ; whimpering with 
joy, and imploring, with every grace that his 
simple doggish heart could suggest, to be one 
of the eloping party. 

Rags had followed them ! 

Timothy was so glad to find it no worse 
that he wasted a moment in embracing the 
dog, whose delirious joy at the prospect of 
this probably dinnerless and supperless ex- 
pedition was ludicrously exaggerated. Then 
he took up the rope and trundled the chariot 
gently down a side street leading to the sta- 
tion. 

Everything worked to a charm. They 
met only an occasional milk (and water) 
man, starting on his matutinal rounds, for 
it was now after four o’clock, and one or 
two cavaliers of uncertain gait, just return- 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


25 


mg to their homes, several hours too late for 
their own good ; but these gentlemen were 
in no condition of mind to be over-inter- 
ested, and the little fugitives were troubled 
with no questions as to their intentions. 

And so they went out into the world to- 
gether, these three: Timothy Jessup (if it 
was Jessup), brave little knight, nameless 
nobleman, tracing his descent back to God, 
the Father of us all, and bearing the Divine 
likeness more than most of us; the little 
Lady Gay, — somebody — nobody — any- 
body, — from nobody knows where, — des- 
tination equally uncertain ; and Rags, of 
pedigree most doubtful, scutcheon quite ob- 
scured by blots, but a perfect gentleman, 
true - hearted and loyal to the core, — in 
fact, an angel in fur. These three, with the 
clothes-basket as personal property and the 
Bank of England as security, went out to 
seek their fortune ; and, unlike Lot’s wife, 
without daring to look behind, shook the 
dust of Minerva Court from off their feet 
forever and forever. 


SCENE m. 


The Railway Station . 

TIMOTHY PLANS A CAMPAIGN, AND PROVIDENCE 
ASSISTS MATERIALLY IN CARRYING IT OUT) 
OR VICE VERSA. 

By dint of skillful generalship, Timothy 
gathered his forces on a green bank just be- 
hind the railway depot, cleared away a suf- 
ficient number of tin cans and oyster-shells 
to make a flat space for the chariot of war, 
which had now become simply a cradle, and 
sat down, with Rags curled up at his feet, to 
plan the campaign. 

He pushed bacl w he ragged hat from his 
waving hair, and, clasping his knees with 
his hands, gazed thoughtfully at the tower- 
ing chimneys in the foreground and the 
white-winged ships in the distant harbor. 
There was a glimpse of something like a 
man’s purpose in the sober eyes ; and as the 
morning sunlight fell upon his earnest face, 
the angel in him came to the surface, and 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


27 


crowded the “ boy part ” quite out of sight, 
as it has a way of doing sometimes with chil- 
dren. 

How some father - heart would have 
throbbed with pride to own him, and how 
gladly lifted the too heavy burden from his 
childish shoulders ! 

Timothy Jessup, aged ten or eleven, or 
thereabouts (the records had not been kept 
with absolute exactness) — Timothy Jessup, 
somewhat ragged, all forlorn, and none too 
clean at the present moment, was a poet, 
philosopher, and lover of the beautiful. The 
dwellers in Minerva Court had never discov- 
ered the fact ; for, although he had lived in 
that world, he had most emphatically never 
been of it. He was a boy of strange no* 
tions, and the vocabulary in which he ex- 
pressed them was stranger still ; further- 
more, he had gentle manners, which must 
have been indigenous, as they had certainly 
never been cultivated ; and, although he had 
been in the way of handling pitch for many 
a day, it had been helpless to defile him, 
such was the essential purity of his nature. 

To find a home and a mother for Lady 
Gay had been Timothy’s secret longing ever 
since he had heard people say that Flossy 


28 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


might die. He had once enjoyed all the 
comforts of a Home with a capital H ; but 
it was the cosy one with the little “ h ” that 
he so much desired for her. 

Not that he had any ill treatment to re* 
member in the excellent institution of which 
he was for several years an inmate. The 
matron was an amiable and hard-working 
woman, who wished to do her duty to all the 
children under her care ; but it would be an 
inspired human being indeed who could give 
a hundred and fifty motherless or fatherless 
children all the education and care and train- 
ing they needed, to say nothing of the love 
that they missed and craved. What wonder, 
then, that an occasional hungry little soul 
starved for want of something not provided 
by the management ; say, a morning cuddle 
in father’s bed or a ride on father’s knee, — - 
in short, the sweet daily jumble of lap* 
trotting, gentle caressing, endearing words, 
twilight stories, motherly tucks-in-bed, good- 
night kisses, — all the dear, simple, every- 
day accompaniments of the home with the 
little “ h.” 

Timothy Jessup, bred in such an atmos- 
phere, would have gladdened every life that 
touched his at any point. Plenty of wistful 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


29 


men and women would have thanked God 
nightly on their knees for the gift of such a 
son ; and here he was, sitting on a tin can, 
bowed down with family cares, while thou- 
sands of graceless little scalawags were slap- 
ping the faces of their French nurse-maids 
and bullying their parents, in that very city 
— Ah me ! 

As for the tiny Lady Gay, she had all the 
winsome virtues to recommend her. No one 
ever feared that she would die young out of 
sheer goodness. You would not have loved 
her so much for what she was as because 
you could n’t help yourself. This feat once 
accomplished, she blossomed into a thousand 
graces, each one more bewitching than the 
last you noted. 

Where, in the name of all the sacred laws 
of heredity, did the child get her sunshiny 
nature? Born in misery, and probably in 
sin, nurtured in wretchedness and pov- 
erty, she had brought her “ radiant morn- 
ing visions ” with her into the world. Like 
Wordsworth’s immortal babe, “with trail- 
ing clouds of glory ” had she come, from God 
who was her home ; and the heaven that lies 
about us all in our infancy, — that Garden 
of Eden into which we are all born, like 


80 


TIMOTEY'S QUEST. 


the first man and the first woman, — that 
heaven lay about her still, stronger than 
the touch of earth. 

What if the room were desolate and bare? 
The yellow sunbeams stole through the nar- 
row window, and in the shaft of light they 
threw across the dusty floor Gay played, — 
oblivious of everything save the flickering 
golden rays that surrounded her. 

The raindrops chasing each other down 
the dingy pane, the snowflakes melting softly 
on the casement, the brown leaf that the 
wind blew into her lap as she sat on the 
sidewalk, the chirp of the little beggar-spar- 
rows over the cobblestones, all these brought 
as eager a light into her baby eyes as the 
costliest toy. With no earthly father or 
mother to care for her, she seemed to be 
God’s special charge, and He amused her 
in his own good way ; first by locking her 
happiness within her own soul (the only 
place where it is ever safe for a single mo- 
ment), and then by putting her under Tim- 
othy’s paternal ministrations. 

Timothy’s mind traveled back over the 
past, as he sat among the tin cans and looked 
at Rags and Gay. It was a very small 
story, if he ever found any one who would 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


31 


care to hear it. There was a long journey 
in a great ship, a wearisome illness of many 
weeks, — or was it months ? — when his 
curls had been cut off, and all his memories 
with them ; then there was the Home ; then 
there was Flossy, who came to take him 
away ; then — oh, bright, bright spot ! oh, 
blessed time ! — there was baby Gay ; then, 
worse than all, there was Minerva Court. 
But he did not give many minutes to remi- 
niscence. He first broke open the Bank of 
England, and threw it away, after finding to 
his joy that their fortune amounted to one 
dollar and eighty-five cents. This was so 
much in advance of his expectations that he 
laughed aloud ; and Bags, wagging his tail 
with such vigor that he nearly broke it in 
two, jumped into the cradle and woke the 
baby. 

Then there was a happy family circle, you 
may believe me, and with good reason, too ! 
A trip to the country (meals and lodging 
uncertain, but that was a trifle), a sight of 
green meadows, where Tim would hear real 
birds sing in the trees, and Gay would 
gather wild flowers, and Rags would chase 
and perhaps — who knows ? — catch tooth- 
some squirrels and fat little field-mice, oL 


82 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


which the country dogs visiting Minerva 
Court had told the most mouth-watering 
tales. Gay’s transport knew no bounds. 
Her child-heart felt no regret for the past, 
no care for the present, no anxiety for the 
future. The only world she cared for was 
in her sight ; and she had never, in her brief 
experience, gazed upon it with more radiant 
anticipation than on this sunny June morn, 
ing, when she had opened her bright eyes on 
a pleasant, odorous bank of oyster-shells, in- 
stead of on the accustomed surroundings of 
Minerva Court. 

Breakfast was first in order. 

There was a pump conveniently near, and 
the oyster-shells made capital cups. Gay 
had three cookies, Timothy two, and Rags 
one ; but there was no statute of limitations 
placed on the water ; every one had as much 
as he could drink. 

The little matter of toilets came next. 
Timothy took the dingy rag which did duty 
for a handkerchief, and, calling the pump 
again into requisition, scrubbed Gay’s face 
and hands tenderly, but firmly. Her clothes 
were then all smoothed down tidily, but the 
clean apron was kept for the eventful mo- 
ment when her future mother should first 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 33 

be allowed to behold the form of her adopted 
child. 

The comb was then brought out, and her 
mop of red-gold hair was assisted to fall in 
wet spirals all over her lovely head, which 
always “ wiggled ” too much for any more 
formal style of hair-dressing. Her Sunday 
hat being tied on, as the crowning glory, this 
lucky little princess, this child of Fortune, 
so inestimably rich in her own opinion, this 
daughter of the gods, I say, was returned to 
the basket, where she endeavored to keep 
quiet until the next piece of delightful un- 
expectedness should rise from fairy -land 
upon her excited gaze. 

Timothy and Rags now went to the pump, 
and Rags was held under the spout. This 
w r as a new and bitter experience, and he 
wished for a few brief moments that he had 
never joined the noble army of deserters, 
but had stayed where dirt was fashionable. 
Being released, the sense of abnormal clean- 
liness mounted to his brain, and he tore 
breathlessly round in a circle seventy-seven 
times without stopping. But this only dried 
his hair and amused Gay, who was begin- 
ning to find the basket confining, and who 
clamored for “ Timfy ” to take her to “yide.” 


34 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


Timothy attended to himself last, as usual 
He put his own head under the pump, and 
3crubbed his face and hands heartily ; wip- 
ing them on his — well, he wiped them, 
and that is the main thing; besides, his 
handkerchief had been reduced to a pulp in 
Gay’s service. He combed his hair, pulled 
up his stockings and tied his shoes neatly, 
buttoned his jacket closety over his shirt, 
and was just pinning up the rent in his hat, 
when Rags considerately brought another 
suggestion in the shape of an old chicken- 
wing, with which he brushed every speck of 
dust from his clothes. This done, and being 
no respecter of persons, he took the family 
comb to Rags, who woke the echoes during 
the operation, and hoped to the Lord that 
the squirrels would run slowly and that the 
field-mice would be very tender, to pay him 
for this. 

It was now nearly eight o’clock, and the 
party descended the hillside and entered the 
side door of the station. 

The day’s work had long since begun, and 
there was the usual din and uproar of rail- 
road traffic. Trucks, laden high with boxes 
and barrels, were being driven to the wide 
doors, and porters were thundering and 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


35 


thumping and lurching the freight from one 
set of cars into another ; their primary ob- 
jects being to make a racket and demolish 
raw material, thereby increasing manufac? 
ture and export, but incidentally to load or 
unload as much freight as possible in a given 
time. 

Timothy entered, trundling his carriage, 
where Lady Gay sat enthroned like a fash- 
ionable belle on a dog-cart, conscious pride 
of Sunday hat on week-day morning exud- 
ing from every feature ; and Lags followed 
close behind, clean, but with a crushed spirit, 
which he could stimulate only by the most 
seductive imaginations. No one molested 
them, for Timothy was very careful not to 
get in any one’s way. Finally, he drew up 
in front of a high blackboard, on which the 
names of various way-stations were printed 
in gold letters : — 

Chestertown. 

Sandford. 

Reedville. 

Bingham. 

Skaggstown. 

Esbury. 

Scratch Corner. 

Hillside. 


86 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


Mountain View. 

Edgewood. 

Pleasant River. 

. “ The names get nicer and nicer as you 
read down the line, and the furtherest one 
of all is the very prettiest, so I think we ’ll 
go there,” thought Timothy, not realizing 
that his choice was based on most insecure 
foundations ; and that, for aught he knew, 
the milk of human kindness might have 
more cream on it at Scratch Corner than at 
Pleasant River, though the latter name was 
certainly more attractive. 

Gay approved of Pleasant River, and so 
did Rags ; and Timothy moved off down the 
station to a place on the open platform 
where a train of cars stood ready for start- 
ing, the engine at the head gasping and puff- 
ing and breathing as hard as if it had an 
acute attack of asthma. 

“ How much does it cost to go to Pleasant 
River, please?” asked Tim, bravely, of a 
kind-looking man in a blue coat and brass 
buttons, who stood by the cars. 

“ This is a freight train, sonny,” replied 
the man ; “ takes four hours to get there^ 
Better wait till 10.45 ; buy your ticket up in 
the station.” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 37 

“ 10.45 ! ” Tim saw visions of Mrs. 
Simmons speeding down upon him in hot 
pursuit, kindled by Gay’s disappearance into 
an appreciation of her charms. 

The tears stood in his eyes as Gay clanr 
bered out of the basket, and danced with 
impatience, exclaiming, “ Gay wants to yide 
now ! yide now ! yide now ! ” 

“ Did yon want to go sooner ? ” asked the 
man, who seemed to be entirely too much 
interested in humanity to succeed in the rail- 
road business. “ W ell, as you seem to have 
consid’rable of a family on your hands, I 
guess we ’ll take you along. Jim, unlock 
that car and let these children in, and then 
lock it up again. It ’s a car we ’re taking 
up to the end of the road for repairs, bubby, 
so the comp’ny ’ll give you and your folks 
a free ride ! ” 

Timothy thanked the man in his politest 
manner, and Gay pressed a piece of moist 
cooky into his hand, and offered him one of 
her swan’s-down kisses, a favor of which she 
was usually as chary as if it had possessed 
a market value. 

“ Are you going to take the dog ? ” asked 
the man, as Rags darted up the steps with 
sniffs and barks of ecstatic delight. “He 


38 


flMOTHY'S QUEST. 


ain’t so handsome but you can get another 
easy enough ! ” (Rags held his breath in 
suspense, and wondered if he had been put 
under a roaring cataract, and then ploughed 
in deep furrows with a sharp-toothed instru- 
ment of torture, only to be left behind at 
last !) 

“ That ’s just why I take him,” said Tim- 
othy ; “ because he is n’t handsome and has 
nobody else to love him.” 

(“ Not a very polite reason,” thought 
Rags ; “ but anything to go ! ”) 

“ Well, jump in, dog and all, and they ’ll 
give you the best free ride to the country 
you ever had in your life ! Tell ’em it ’s all 
right, Jim ; ” and the train steamed out of 
the depot, while the kind man waved his 
bandana handkerchief until the children 
were out of sight. 


SCENE IV. 


Pleasant River. 

JABE SLOCUM ASSUMES THE r6lE OF GUARDIAN 
ANGEL. 

Jabe Slocum had been down to Edge- 
wood, and was just returning to the White 
Farm, by way of the cross-roads and Hard 
Scrabble school-house. He was in no hurry, 
though he always had more work on hand 
than he could leave undone for a month*, 
and Maria also was taking her own time, as 
usual, even stopping now and then to crop 
an unusually sweet tuft of grass that grew 
within smelling distance, and which no mare 
with a driver like Jabe could afford to pass 
without notice. 

Jabe was ostensibly out on an “ errant ” 
for Miss Avilda Cummins ; but, as he had 
been in her service for six years, she had no 
expectations of his accomplishing anything 
beyond getting to a place and getting back 
in the same day, the distance covered being 
no factor at all in the matter. 


40 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


Bat one need n’t go to Miss Avilda Cum- 
mins for a description of Jabe Slocum’s 
peculiarities. They were all so written upon 
his face and figure and speech that the way- 
faring man, though a fool, could not err in 
his judgment. He was a long, loose, knock- 
kneed, slack-twisted person, and would have 
been “ longer yit if he hed n’t hed so much 
turned up for feet,” — so Aunt Hitty Tar- 
box said. (Aunt Hitty went from house to 
house in Edgewood and Pleasant River, mak- 
ing over boys’ clothes ; and as her tongue 
flew as fast as her needle, her sharp speeches 
were always in circulation in both villages.) 

Mr. Slocum had sandy hair, high cheek- 
bones, a pair of kindly light blue eyes, and 
a most unique nose : I hardly know to what 
order of architecture it belonged, — perhaps 
Old Colonial would describe it as well as 
anything else. It was a wide, fiat, well- 
ventilated, hospitable edifice (so to speak), 
so peculiarly constructed and applied that 
Samantha Ann Ripley (of whom more anon) 
declared that “ the reason Jabe Slocum 
ketched cold so easy was that, if he did n’t 
hold his head jess so, it kep’ a-rainin’ in on 
him ! ” 

His mouth was simply an enormous slit 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


41 


in his face, and served all the purposes for 
which a mouth is presumably intended, save, 
perhaps, the trivial one of decoration. In 
short (a ludicrously inappropriate word for 
the subject), it was a capital medium for 
exits and entrances, but no ornament to his 
countenance. When Rhapsena Crabb, now 
deceased, was first engaged to Jabez Slocum, 
Aunt Hitty Tarbox said it beat her “how 
Rhapseny ever got over Jabe’s mouth; 
though she could ’a’ got intew it easy ’nough, 
or raound it, if she took plenty o’ time.” 
But perhaps Rhapsena appreciated a mouth 
(in a husband) that never was given to 
“ jawin’,” and which uttered only kind words 
during her brief span of married life. And 
there was precious little leisure for kissing 
at Pleasant River ! 

As Jabe had passed the store, a few 
minutes before, one of the boys had called 
out, facetiously, “ Shet yer mouth when ye 
go by the deepot, Laigs ; the train ’s cornin’ 
in ! ” But he only smiled placidly, though 
it was an ancient joke, the flavor of which 
had just fully penetrated the rustic skull, 
and the villagers could not resist titillating 
the sense of humor with it once or twice a 
month. Neither did Jabez mind being called 


42 


TIMOTHY’ S QUEST. 


“ Laigs,” the local pronunciation of the 
word “ legs ; ” in fact, his good humor was 
too deep to be ruffled. His “ cistern of 
wrathfulness was so small, and the supply 
pipe so unready,” that it was next to impos- 
sible to “ put him out,” so the natives said. 

He was a man of tolerable education ; the 
only son of his parents, who had endeavored 
to make great things of him, and might per- 
haps have succeeded, if he had n’t always 
had so little time at his disposal, — had n’t 
been “so drove,” as he expressed it. He 
went to the village school as regularly as he 
couldn’t help, that is, as many days as he 
could n’t contrive to stay away, until he was 
fourteen. From there he was sent to the 
Academy, three miles distant ; but his mo- 
ther soon found that he could n’t make the 
two trips a day and be “ under cover by 
candlelight ; ” so the plan of a classical edu- 
cation was abandoned, and he was allowed 
to speed the home plough, — a profession 
which he pursued with such moderation that 
his father, when starting him down a fur- 
row in the morning, used to hang his dinner- 
pail on his arm, and, bidding him good-by, 
beg him, with tears in his eyes, to be back 
before sundown. 


TIMOTHY* S QUEST. 


43 


At the present moment Jabe was enjoy- 
ing a cud of Old Virginia plug tobacco, and 
taking in no more of the landscape than he 
could avoid, when Maria, having wound up 
to the top of Marm Berry’s hill in spite of 
herself, walked directly out on one side of 
the road, and stopoed short to make room 
for the passage of an imposing procession, 
made up of one straw phaeton, one baby, 
one strange boy, and one strange dog. 

J abe eyed the party with some placid in- 
terest, for he loved children, but with no 
undue excitement. Shifting his huge quid, 
he inquired in his usual leisurely manner, 
“ Which way yer goin’, bub, — t’ the Swamp 
or t’ the Falls ? ” 

Timothy thought neither sounded espe- 
cially inviting, but, rapidly choosing the 
lesser evil, replied, “ To the Falls, sir.” 

“ Thy way happens to be my way, ’s 
Rewth said to Naomi ; so ’f gittin’ over the 
road ’s your objeck, ’n’ y’ ain’t pertickler 
’baout the gait ye travel, ye can git in V 
ride a piece. We don’t b’lieve in hurryin’, 
Mariar ’n’ me. Slow ’n’ easy goes fur in a 
day, ’s our motto. Can ye git your folkf 
aboard withaout spillin’ any of ’em ? ” 

No wonder he asked, for Gay was in sucl 


44 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


a wild state of excitement that she could 
hardly be held. 

“ I can lift Gay up, if you ’ll please take 
her, sir,” said Timothy ; “ and if you ’re 
quite sure the horse will stand still.” 

“ Bless your soul, she ’ll stan’ all right ; 
she likes stan’in’ a heap better ’n she doos 
goin’ ; runnin’ away ain’t no temptation to 
Maria Cummins ; let well enough alone ’s 
her motto. Jump in, sissy ! There ye be ! 
Now git yer baby-shay in the back of the 
wagon, bubby, ’n’ we ’ll be ’s snug ’s a bug 
in a rug.” 

Timothy, whose creed was simple and 
whose beliefs were crystal clear, now felt 
that his morning prayer had been heard, 
and that the Lord was on his side; so he 
abandoned all idea of commanding the situ- 
ation, and gave himself up to the full ecstasy 
of the ride, as they jogged peacefully along 
the river road. 

Gay held a piece of a rein that peeped 
from Jabe’s colossal hand (which was said 
by the villagers to cover ’most as much ter- 
ritory as the hand of Providence), and was 
convinced that she was driving Maria, an 
idea that made her speechless with joy. 

Bags’ wildest dreams of squirrels came 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


45 


^ue ; and, reconciled at length to cleanli- 
ness, he was capering in and out of the 
«voods, thinking what an Arabian Nights’ 
entertainment he would give the Minerva 
Court dogs when he returned, if return he 
ever must to that miserable, squirrelless 
hole. 

The meadows on the other side of the 
river were gorgeous with yellow buttercups, 
and here and there a patch of blue iris or 
wild sage. The black cherry trees were 
masses of snowy bloom ; the water at the 
river’s edge held spikes of blue arrowweed 
in its crystal shallows; while the roadside 
itself was gay with daisies and feathery 
grasses. 

In the midst of this loveliness flowed 
Pleasant River, 

“ Vexed in all its seaward course by bridges, dams, and 
mills,” 

but finding time, during the busy summer 
months, to flush its fertile banks with 
beauty. 

Suddenly (a word that could seldom be 
truthfully applied to the description of Jabe 
Slocum’s movements) the reins were ruth- 
lessly drawn from Lady Gay's hands and 
wound about the whipstock. 


46 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


“ Gorry ! ” ejaculated Mr. Slocum, “ ef 
I hain’t left the widder Foss settin’ on Aunt 
Hitty’s hoss-block, ’n’ I promised to pick her 
up when I come along back ! That all comes 
o’ my drivin’ by the store so fast on account 
o’ the boys hectorin’ of me, so ’t when I got 
to the turn I was so kind of het up I jogged 
right along the straight road. Haste makes 
waste ’s an awful good motto. Pile out, 
young ones ! It ’s only half a mile from 
here to the Falls, ’n’ you ’ll have to get there 
on Shank’s mare ! ” 

So saying, he dumped the astonished 
children into the middle of the road, from 
whence he had plucked them, turned the 
docile mare, and with a “ Git, Mariar ! ” 
went four miles back to relieve Aunt Hitty’s 
horse-block from the weight of the widder 
Foss, which was no joke 

This turn of affairs was most unexpected, 
and Gay seemed o** the point of tears ; but 
Timothy gathered Iier a handful of wild 
flowers, wiped the dust from her face, put 
on the clean blue gingham apron, and estab- 
lished her in the basket, where she soon fell 
asleep, wearied by the excitements of the 
day. 

Timothy’s heart began to be a little troiir 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


47 


bled as he walked on and on through the 
leafy woods, trundling the basket behind 
him. Nothing had gone wrong ; indeed, 
everything had been much easier than he 
could have hoped. Perhaps it was the 
weariness that had crept into his legs, and 
the hollowness that began to appear in his 
stomach ; but, somehow, although in the 
morning he had expected to find adopted 
mothers beckoning from every window, so 
that he could scarcely choose between them, 
he now felt as if the whole race of mothers 
had suddenly become extinct. 

Soon the village came in sight, nestled in 
the laps of the green hills on both sides of 
the river. Timothy trudged bravely on, 
scanning all the dwellings, but finding none 
of them just the thing. At last he turned 
deliberately off the main road, where the 
houses seemed too near together and too 
near the street, for his taste, and trundled 
his family down a shady sort of avenue, over 
which the arching elms met and clasped 
hands. 

Kags had by this time lowered his tail to 
half-mast, and kept strictly to the beaten 
path, notwithstanding manifold temptations 
to forsake it. He passed two cats without 


48 


TIMOTHY’S QUEST. 


a single insulting remark, and his entire de- 
meanor was eloquent of nostalgia. 

“ Oh, dear ! ” sighed Timothy disconso- 
lately ; “ there ’s something wrong with all 
the places. Either there ’s no pigeon-house, 
like in all the pictures, or no flower garden, 
or no chickens, or no lady at the window, or 
else there ’s lots of baby-clothes hanging on 
the wash-lines. I don’t believe I shall ever 
find ” — 

At this moment a large, comfortable white 
house, that had been heretofore hidden by 
great trees, came into view. Timothy drew 
nearer to the spotless picket fence, and gazed 
upon the beauties of the side yard and the 
front garden, — gazed and gazed, and fell 
desperately in love at first sight. 

The whole thing had been made as if to 
order ; that is all there is to say about it. 
There was an orchard, and, oh, ecstasy ! 
what hosts of green apples ! There was an 
interesting grindstone under one tree, and a 
bright blue chair and stool under another ; 
a thicket of currant and gooseberry bushes ; 
and a flock of young turkeys ambling awk- 
wardly through the barn. Timothy stepped 
gently along in the thick grass, past a pnmp 
and a mossy trough, till a side porch came 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


49 


into view, with a woman sitting there sewing 
bright -colored rags. A row of shining tin 
pans caught the sun’s rays, and threw them 
back in a thousand glittering prisms of light ; 
the grasshoppers and crickets chirped sleepily 
in the warm grass, and a score of tiny yellow 
1 butterflies hovered over a group of odorous 
hollyhocks. 

Suddenly the person on the porch broke 
into this cheerful song, which she pitched in 
so high a key and gave with such emphasis 
that the crickets and grasshoppers retired 
by mutual consent from any further compe- 
tition, and the butterflies suspended opera- 
tions for several seconds : — 

“ I ’ll chase the antelope over the plain, 

The tiger’s cub I ’ll bind with a chain, 

And the wild gazelle with its silv’ry feet 
I ’ll bring to thee for a playmate sweet.” 

Timothy listened intently for some mo- 
ments, but could not understand the words, 
unless the lady happened to be in the 
menagerie business, which he thought un- 
likely, but delightful should it prove true. 

His eye then fell on a little marble slab 
under a tree in a shady corner of the or- 
chard. 

“ That ’s a country doorplate/’ he thought i 


60 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


“ yes, it ’s got tlie lady’s name, 4 Martha 
Cummins,’ printed on it. Now I’ll know 
what to call her.” 

He crept softly on to the front side of the 
house. There were flower beds, a lovable 
white cat snoozing on the doorsteps, and — - 
a lady sitting at the open window knitting ! 

At this vision Timothy’s heart beat so 
hard against his dusty jacket that he could 
only stagger back to the basket, where Rags 
and Lady Gay were snuggled together, fast 
asleep. He anxiously scanned Gay’s face; 
moistened his rag of a handkerchief at the 
only available source of supply ; scrubbed an 
atrocious dirt spot from the tip of her spir- 
ited nose ; and then, dragging the basket 
along the path leading to the front gate, he 
opened it and went in, mounted the steps, 
plied the brass knocker, and waited in child- 
like faith for a summons to enter and make 
himself at home. 


SCENE y. 

The White Farm. Afternoon . 

TIMOTHY FINDS A HOUSE IN WHICH HE THINKS 
A BABY IS NEEDED, BUT THE INMATES DO NOT 
ENTIRELY AGREE WITH HIM. 

Meanwhile, Miss Avilda Cummins had 
left her window and gone into the next room 
for a skein of yarn. She answered the 
knock, however ; and, opening the door, 
stood rooted to the threshold in speechless 
astonishment, very much as if she had seen 
the shades of her ancestors drawn up in line 
in the dooryard. 

Off went Timothy’s hat. He had n’t seen 
the lady’s face very clearly when she was 
knitting at the window, or he would never 
have dared to knock ; but it was too late to 
retreat. Looking straight into her cold eyes 
with his own shining gray ones, he said 
bravely, but with a trembling voice, “ Do 
you need any babies here, if you please ? ” 
(Need any babies ! What an inappropriate. 


52 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


nonsensical expression, to be sure ; as if a 
household baby were something exquisitely 
indispensable, like the breath of life, for 
instance !) 

No answer. Miss Vilda was trying to 
assume command of her scattered faculties 
and find some clue to the situation. Tim- 
othy concluded that she was not, after all, 
the lady of the house ; and, remembering 
the marble doorplate in the orchard, tried 
again. “ Does Miss Martha Cummins live 
here, if you please ? ” (Oh, Timothy ! what 
induced you, in this crucial moment of your 
life, to touch upon that sorest spot in Miss 
Vilda’s memory ?) 

“ What do you want ? ” she faltered. 

“ I want to get somebody to adopt my 
baby,” he said ; “ if you have n’t got any of 
your own, you could n’t find one half as dear 
and as pretty as she is ; and you need n’t 
have me too, you know, unless you should 
need me to help take care of her.” 

“You’re very kind,” Miss Avilda an- 
swered sarcastically, preparing to shut the 
door upon the strange child ; “ but I don’t 
think I care to adopt any babies this after- 
noon, thank you. You’d better run right 
back home to your mother, if you ’ve got 
one, and know where ’t is, anyhow.” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


53 


“But I — I have n’t !” cried poor Timothy, 
with a sudden and unpremeditated burst of 
tears at the failure of his hopes ; for he was 
half child as well as half hero. At this 
juncture Gay opened her eyes, and burst 
into a wild howl at the unwonted sight of 
Timothy’s grief ; and Rags, who was full 
of exquisite sensibility, and quite ready to 
weep with those who wept, lifted up his 
woolly head and added his piteous wails to 
the concert. It was a tableau vivant . 

“ Samanthy Ann ! ” called Miss Yilda 
excitedly ; “ Samanthy Ann ! Come right 
here and tell me what to do ! ” 

The person thus adjured flew in from the 
porch, leaving a serpentine trail of red, yel- 
low, and blue rags in her wake. “ Land o’ 
liberty ! ” she exclaimed, as she surveyed the 
group. “ Where ’d they come from, and 
what air they tryin’ to act out ? ” 

“ This boy ’s a baby agent, as near as I 
can make out ; he wants I should adopt this 
red-headed baby, but says I ain’t obliged to 
take him too, and pretends they have n’t 
got any home. I told him I wa’n’t adoptin’ 
any babies just now, and at that he burst 
out cryin’, and the other two followed suit, 
^ow, have the three of ’em just escaped 


54 TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 

from some asylum, or are they too little to 
be lunatics ? ” 

Timothy dried his tears, in order that Gay 
should be comforted and appear at her best, 
and said penitently : “ I cried before I 
thought, because Gay has n’t had anything 
but cookies since last night, and she ’ll have 
no place to sleep unless you ’ll let us stay 
here just till morning. We went by all the 
other houses, and chose this one because 
everything was so beautiful.” 

“Nothin’ but cookies sence — Land o’ 
liberty ! ” ejaculated Samantha Ann, starting 
for the kitchen. 

“ Come back here, Samanthy ! Don’t 
you leave me alone with ’em, and don’t let ’s 
have all the neighbors runnin’ in ; you take 
’em into the kitchen and give ’em somethin* 
to eat, and we ’ll see about the rest after- 
wards.” 

Gay kindled at the first casual mention of 
food ; and, trying to clamber out of the bas- 
ket, fell over the edge, thumping her head 
smartly on the stone steps. Miss Vilda cov- 
ered her face with her hands, and waited 
shudderingly for another yell, as the child’s 
carnation stockings and terra-cotta head min- 
gled wildly in the air. But Lady Gay dis- 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST, 


55 


entangled herself, and laughed the merriest 
burst of laughter that ever woke the echoes. 
That was a joke ; her life was full of them, 
served fresh every day ; for no sort of ad- 
versity could long have power over such a 
nature as hers. “ Come get supper,” she 
cooed, putting her hand in Samantha’s ; add- 
ing that the “ nasty lady need n’t come,” a 
remark that happily escaped detection, as it 
was rendered in very unintelligible “ early 
English.” 

Miss Avilda tottered into the darkened 
sitting-room and sank on to a black hair- 
cloth sofa, while Samantha ushered the wan- 
derers into the sunny kitchen, muttering to 
herself : “ W all, I vow ! travelin’ over the 
country all alone, ’n’ not knee-high to a 
toad ! They ’re sendin’ out awful young 
tramps this season, but they sha’n’t go away 
hungry, if I know it.” 

Accordingly, she set out a plentiful sup- 
ply of bread and butter, gingerbread, pie, 
and milk, put a tin plate of cold hash in the 
shed for Rags, and swept him out to it with , 
a corn broom ; and, telling the children com- ’ 
fortably to cram their “ everlastin’ little 
bread-baskets full,” returned to the sitting- 
room. 


56 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


“Now, whatever makes you so panicky, 
Yildy ? Did n’t you never see a tramp be* 
fore, for pity’s sake ? And if you ’re scar’t 
for fear I can’t handle ’em alone, why, Jabe 
•’ll be cornin’ along soon. The prospeck of 
gittin’ to bed ’s the only thing that ’ll make 
him ’n’ Maria hurry ; ’n’ they ’ll both be 
cal’latin’ on that by this time ! ” 

“ Samanthy Ann, the first question that 
that boy asked me was, ‘ If Miss Martha 
Cummins lived here.’ Now, what do you 
make of that ? ” 

Samantha looked as astonished as any- 
body could wish. “ Asked if Marthy Cum- 
mins lived here? How under the canopy 
did he ever hear Marthy’s name? Wall, 
somebody told him to ask, that ’s all there is 
about it ; and what harm was there in it, 
anyhow ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know ; but 
the minute that boy looked up at me and 
asked for Martha Cummins, the old trouble, 
that I thought was dead and buried years 
ago, started right up in my heart and begun 
to ache just as if it all happened yesterday.” 

“ Now keep stiddy, Yildy ; what could 
happen ? ” urged Samantha. 

“ Why, it flashed across my mind in a 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


57 


minute,” and here Miss Yilda lowered her 
voice to a whisper, “ that perhaps Martha’s 
baby did n’t die, as they told her.” 

“ But, land o’ liberty, s’posin’ it did n’t ! 
Poor Marthy died herself more ’n twenty 
years ago.” 

“ I know ; but supposing her baby did n’t 
die ; and supposing it grew up and died, and 
left this little girl to roam round the world 
afoot and alone ? ” 

“ You ’re cal’latin’ dreadful close, ’pears 
to me; now, don’t go s’posin’ any more 
things. You’re makin’ out one of them 
yellow-covered books, sech as the summer 
boarders bring out here to read ; always 
chock full of doin’ s that never would come 
to pass in this or any other Christian coun- 
try. You jest lay down and snuff your 
camphire, an’ I ’ll go out an’ pump that boy 
drier ’n a sand heap ! ” 

Now, Miss Avilda Cummins was unmar- 
ried by every implication of her being, as 
Henry James would say: but Samantha 
Ann Kipley was a spinster purely by acci- 
dent. She had seldom been exposed to the 
witcheries of children, or she would have 
known long before this that, so far as she 


58 


TIMOTHY’S QUEST. 


was personally concerned, they would always 
prove irresistible. She marched into the 
kitchen like a general resolved upcn the 
extinction of the enemy. She walked out 
again, half an hour later, with the very teeth 
of her resolve drawn, but so painlessly that 
she had not been aware of the operation f 
She marched in a woman of a single pur. 
pose ; she came out a double-faced diplo> 
matist, with the seeds of sedition and con* 
spiracy lurking, all unsuspected, in her heart. 

The cause? Nothing more than a dozen 
trifles as light as air. Timothy had sat upon 
a little wooden stool at her feet ; and, rest- 
ing his arms on her knees, had looked up 
into her kind, rosy face with a pair of liquid 
eyes like gray-blue lakes, eyes which seemed 
and were the very windows of his soul. 
He had sat there telling his wee bit of a 
story ; just a vague, shadowy, plaintive, un- 
complaining scrap of a story, without be- 
ginning, plot, or ending, but every word in 
it set Samantha Ann Ripley’s heart throb- 
bing. 

And Gay, who knew a good thing when 
she saw it, had climbed up into her capa 
cious Jap, and, not being denied, had cuddled 
her head into that “ gracious hollow ” in Sa 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


59 


mantha’s shoulder, that had somehow n&lssed 
the pressure of the childish heads that should 
have lain there. Then Samantha’s arm had 
finally crept round the wheedlesome bit of 
soft humanity, and before she knew it her 
chair was swaying gently to and fro, to and 
fro, to and fro; and the wooden rockers 
creaked more sweetly than ever they had 
creaked before, for they were singing their 
first cradle song ! 

Then Gay heaved a great sigh of unspeak- 
able satisfaction, and closed her lovely eyes. 
She had been born with a desire to be cud- 
dled, and had had precious little experience 
of it. At the sound of this happy sigh and 
the sight of the child’s flower face, with the 
upward curling lashes on the pink cheeks 
and the moist tendrils of hair on the white 
forehead, and the helpless, clinging touch of 
the baby arm about her neck, I cannot tell 
you the why or wherefore, but old memo- 
ries and new desires began to stir in Sa- 
mantha Ann Ripley’s heart. In short, she 
had met the enemy, and she was theirs ! 

Presently Gay was laid upon the old- 
fashioned settle, and Samantha stationed 
herself where she could keep the flies off hei 
by waving a palm-leaf fan. 


60 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


“ Now, there ’s one thing more I want you 
to tell me,” said she, after she had possessed 
herself of Timothy’s unhappy past, uncertain 
present, and still more dubious future ; “ and 
that is, what made you ask for Miss Marthy 
Cummins when you come to the door ? ” 

“ Why , I thought it was the lady-of-the- 
house’s name,” said Timothy ; “ I saw it on 
her doorplate.” 

“ But we ain’t got any doorplate, to be- 
gin with.” 

“ Not a silver one on your door, like they 
have in the city ; but is n’t that white mar- 
ble piece in the yard a doorplate? It’s 
got ‘ Martha Cummins, aged 17,’ on it. I 
thought may be in the country they had them 
in their gardens ; only I thought it was queer 
they put their ages on them, because they ’d 
have to be scratched out every little while, 
would n’t they ? ” 

“ My grief ! ” ejaculated Samantha ; “ for 
pity’s sake, don’t you know a tombstun when 
you see it ? ” 

“ No ; what is a tombstun ? ” 

“ Land sakes ! what do you know, any 
way ? Did n’t you never see a graveyard 
where folks is buried ? ” 

w ‘ I never went to the graveyard, but I 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


61 


know where it is, and I know about people’s 
being buried. Flossy is going to be buried. 
And so the white stone shows the places 
where the people are put, and tells their 
names, does it? Why, it is a kind of a 
doorplate, after all, don’t you see ? Who is 
Martha Cummins, aged IT ? ” 

“ She was Miss Vildy’s sister, and she 
went to the city, and then come home and 
died here, long years ago. Miss Yildy set 
great store by her, and can’t bear to have 
her name spoke ; so remember what I say. 
Now, this 4 Flossy ’ you tell me about (of 
all the fool names I ever hearn tell of, that 
beats all, — sounds like a wax doll, with 
her clo’se sewed on !), was she a young wo- 
man?” 

44 I don’t know whether she was young or 
not,” said Tim, in a puzzled tone, 44 She 
had young yellow hair, and very young 
shiny teeth, white as china ; but her neck 
was crackled underneath, like Miss Vilda’s; 
— it had no kissing places in it like 
Gay’s.” 

“Well, you stay here 5n the kitchen a 
spell now, ’n’ don’t let in that rag-dog o’ 
yourn till he stops scratching if he keeps it 
up till the crack o’ doom ; — he ’s got to be 


62 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


learned better manners. Now, I ’ll go in V 
talk to Miss Vildy. She may keep you over 
night, ’n’ she may not ; I ain’t noways sure. 
You started in wrong foot foremost.” 


SCENE YI. 

The White Farm. Evening • 

TIMOTHY, LADY GAY, AND RAGS PROVE FAITH- 
FUL TO ONE ANOTHER 

Samantha went into the sitting-room 
and told the whole story to Miss Avilda ; 
told it simply and plainly, for she was not 
given to arabesques in language, and then 
waited for a response. 

“Well, what do you advise doin’?” 
asked Miss Cummins nervously. 

“ I don’t feel comp’ tent to advise, Yilda ; 
the house ain’t mine, nor yet the beds 
that ’s in it, nor the victuals in the butt’ry ; 
but as a professin’ Christian and member of 
the Orthodox Church in good and reg’lar 
standin’ you can’t turn ’em ou’doors when 
it ’s cornin’ on dark and they ain’t got no 
place to sleep.” 

“Plenty of good Orthodox folks turned 
their backs on Martha when she was in trou- 
ble.” 


64 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


“ There may be Orthodox hogs, for all I 
know,” replied the blunt Samantha, who fre- 
quently called spades shovels in her search 
after absolute truth of statement, “ but that 
ain’t no reason why we should copy after < 
’em ’s I know of.” j 

“ I don’t propose to take in two strange 
children and saddle myself with ’em for 
days, or weeks, perhaps,” said Miss Cum- 
mins coldly, “ but I tell you what I will do. 
Supposing we send the boy over to Squire 
Bean’s. It ’s near hayin’ time, and he may 
take him in to help round and do chores. 
Then we ’ll tell him before he goes that 
we ’ll keep the baby as long, as he gets a 
chance to work anywheres near. That will 
give us a chance to look round for some 
place for ’em and find out whether they ’ve 
told us the truth.” 

“ And if Squire Bean won’t take him ? ” 
asked Samantha, with as much cold indiffer- 
ence as she could assume. 

“ W ell, I suppose there ’s nothing for it 
but he must come back here and sleep. I ’ll 
go out and tell him so, — I declare I feel as 
weak as if I ’d had a spell of sickness ! ” 
Timothy bore the news better than Sa- 
mantha had feared. Squire Bean’s farm 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


65 


did not look so very far away; his heart 
was at rest about Gay and he felt that he 
could find a shelter for himself somewhere. 

“ Now, how ’ll the baby act when she 
' wakes up and finds you ’re gone ? ” inquired 
Miss Vilda anxiously, as Timothy took his 
hat and bent down to kiss the sleeping child. 

“ W ell, I don’t know exactly,” answered 
Timothy, “ because she ’s always had me, 
you see. But I guess she ’ll be all right, now 
that she knows you a little, and if I can see 
her every day. She never cries except once 
in a long while when she gets mad ; and if 
you ’re careful how you behave, she ’ll hardly 
ever get mad at you.” 

“ W ell I vow ! ” exclaimed Miss Vilda 
with a grim glance at Samantha, U I guess 
she ’d better do the behavin’.” 

So Timothy was shown the way across 
the fields to Squire Bean’s. Samantha ac- 
companied him to the back gate, where she 
gave him three doughnuts and a sneaking 
kiss, watching him out of sight under the 
pretense of taking the towels and napkins 
off the grass. 

It was nearly nine o’clock and quite dark 
when Timothy stole again to the little gate 


66 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


of the White Farm. The feet that had 
traveled so courageously over the mile walk 
to Squire Bean’s had come back again 
slowly and wearily; for it is one thing to 
be shod with the sandals of hope, and quite 
another to tread upon the leaden soles of 
disappointment. 

He leaned upon the white picket gate lis- 
tening to the chirp of the frogs and looking 
at the fireflies as they hung their gleaming 
lamps here and there in the tall grass. 
Then he crept round to the side door, to 
implore the kind offices of the mediator 
before he entered the presence of the judge 
whom he assumed to be sitting in awful 
state somewhere in the front part of the 
house. He lifted the latch noiselessly and 
entered. Oh horror ! Miss Avilda herself 
was sprinkling clothes at the great table on 
one side of the room. There was a moment 
of silence. 

“ He would n’t have me,” said Timothy 
simply, “ he said I was n’t big enough yet. 
I offered him Gay, too, but he did n’t want 
her either, and if you please, I would rather 
sleep on the sofa so as not to be any more 
trouble.” 

“ You won’t do any such thing,” re- 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


67 


sponded Miss Vilda briskly. “ You ’ve got 
a royal welcome this time sure, and I guess 
you can earn your lodging fast enough. 
You hear that?” and she opened the door 
that led into the upper part of the house. 

A piercing shriek floated down into the 
kitchen, and another on the heels of that, 
and then another. Every drop of blood in 
Timothy’s spare body rushed to his pale 
grave face. “ Is she being whipped ? ” he 
whispered, with set lips. 

“No; she needs it bad enough, but we 
ain’t savages. She ’s only got the pretty 
temper that matches her hair, just as you 
said. I guess we have n’t been behavin’ to 
suit her.” 

“ Can I go up? She ’ll stop in a minute 
when she sees me. She never went to bed 
without me before, and truly, truly, she ’s 
not a cross baby ! ” 

“ Come right along and welcome ; just 
so long as she has to stay you ’re invited to 
visit with her. Land sakes ! the neighbors 
will think we ’re killin’ pigs ! ” and Miss 
Vilda started upstairs to show Timothy the 
way. 

Gay was sitting up in bed and the faith- 
ful Samantha Ann was seated beside her 


68 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


with a lapful of useless bribes, — apples, 
seed-cakes, an illustrated Bible, a thermom- 
eter, an ear of red corn, and a large stuffed 
green bird, the glory of the “ keeping room ” 
mantelpiece. 

But a whole aviary of highly colored 
songsters would not have assuaged Gay’s 
woe at that moment. Every effort at con- 
ciliation was met with the one plaint : “ I 
want my Timfy ! I want my Tiinfy ! ” 

At the first sight of the beloved form, 
Gay flung the sacred bird into the furthest 
corner of the room and burst into a wild 
sob of delight, as she threw herself into 
Timothy’s loving arms. 

Fifteen minutes later peace had descended 
on the troubled homestead, and Samantha 
went into the sitting-room and threw herself 
into the depths of the high-backed rocker. 
“ Land o’ liberty ! perhaps I ain’t het-up ! ” 
she ejaculated, as she wiped the sweat of 
honest toil from her brow and fanned her- 
self vigorously with her apron. “ I tell you 
what, at five o’clock I was dreadful sorry I 
had n’t took Dave Milliken, but now I ’m 
plaguey glad I did n’t ! Still ” (and here 
she tried to smooth the green bird’s ruffled 
plumage and restore him to his perch under 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 69 

the revered glass case), “ still, children will 
be children.’’ 

“ Some of ’em ’s considerable more like 
wild cats,” said Miss Avilda briefly. 

“You just go upstairs now, and see if 
you find anythiug that looks like wild cats ; 
but ’t any rate, wild cats or tame cats, we 
would n’t dass turn ’em ou’doors this time 
o mght for fear of flyin’ in the face of 
Providence. If it ’s a stint He ’s set us, I 
don’t see but we ’ve got to work it out some- 
how.” 

“ I ’d rather have some other stint.” 

“ To be sure ! ” retorted Samantha vig- 
orously. “ I never see anybody yet that 
did n’t want to pick out her own stint ; but 
mebbe if we got just the one we wanted it 
would n’t be no stint ! Land o’ liberty, 
what ’s that ! ” 

There was a crash of falling tin pans, 
and Samantha flew to investigate the cause. 
About ten minutes later she returned, more 
heated than ever, and threw herself for the 
second time into the high-backed rocker. 

“That dog’s been givin’ me a chase, I 
can tell you ! He clawed and scratched so 
in the shed that I put him in the wood-house ; 
and he went and dim 5 up on that carpen* 


70 


TIMOTHY’S QUEST. 


ter’s bench, and pitched out that little win- 
der at the top, and fell on to the milk-pan 
shelf and scattered every last one of ’em, 
and then upsot all my cans of termatter 
plants. But I could n’t find him, high nor 
low. All to once I see by the dirt on the 
floor that he ’d squirmed himself through 
the skeeter-nettin’ door int’ the house, and 
then I surmised where he was. Sure enough, 
I crep’ upstairs and there he was, laym’ 
between the two children as snug as you 
please. He was snorin’ like a pirate when 
I found him, but when I stood over the bed 
with a candle I could see ’t his wicked little 
eyes was wide open, and he was jest makin’ 
b’lieve sleep in hopes I ’d leave him where 
he was. Well, I yanked him out quicker 
’n scat, ’n’ locked him in the old chicken 
house, so I guess he ’ll stay out, now. For 
folks that claim to be no blood relation, I 
declare him ’n’ the boy ’n’ the baby beats 
anything I ever come across for bein’ fond 
of one ’nother 1 ” 

There were dreams at the White Farm 
that night. Timothy went to sleep with a 
prayer on his lips ; a prayer that God would 
excuse him for speaking of Martha’s door- 
plate, and a most imploring postscript to the 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 71 

effect that God would please make Miss 
Vilda into a mother for Gay ; thinking as 
he floated off into the land of Nod, “ It ’ll 
be awful hard work, but I don’t suppose He 
cares how hard ’t is ! ” 

Lady Gay dreamed of driving beautiful 
white horses beside sparkling waters . . . 
and through flowery meadows. . . . And 
great green birds perched on all the trees 
and flew towards her as if to peck the cher- 
ries of her lips . . . but when she tried to 
beat them off they all turned into Timothys 
and she hugged them close to her heart. . . . 

Bags’ visions were gloomy, for he knew 
not whether the Lady with the Firm Hand 
would free him from his prison in the morn- 
ing, or whether he was there for all time. 
... But there were intervals of bliss when 
his fancies took a brighter turn . . . when 
Hope smiled . . . and he bit the white cat’s 
tail . . . and chased the infant turkeys . . . 
and found sweet, juicy, delicious bones in 
unexpected places . . . and even inhaled, 
in exquisite anticipation, the fragrance of 
one particularly succulent bone that he had 
hidden under Miss Vilda’ s bed. 

Sleep carried Samantha so many years 
back into the past that she heard the blithe 


72 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


din of carpenters hammering and sawing on 
a little house that was to be hers, his, theirs. 
. . . And as she watched them, with all 
sorts of maidenly hopes about the home 
that was to be . . . some one stole up be* 
hind and caught her at it, and she ran away 
blushing . . . and some one followed her 
. . . and they watched the carpenters to- 
gether. . . . Somebody else lived in the lit- 
tle house now, and Samantha never blushed 
any more, but that part was mercifully hid- 
den in the dream. (It is, sometimes !) 

Miss Vilda’s slumber was troubled. She 
seemed to be walking through peaceful 
meadows, brown with autumn, when all at 
once there rose in the path steep hills and 
rocky mountains. . . . She felt too tired and 
too old to climb, but there was nothing else 
to be done. . . . And just as she began the 
toilsome ascent, a little child appeared, and 
catching her helplessly by the skirts im- 
plored to be taken with her. . . . And she 
refused and went on alone . . . but, miracle 
of miracles, when she reached the crest of 
the first hill the child was there before her, 
still beseeching to be carried. . . . And 
again she refused, and again she wearily 
climbed the heights alene, always meeting 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


73 


the child when she reached their summits, 
and always enacting the same scene. . . . 
At last she cried in despair, “Ask me no 
more, for I have not even strength enough 
for my own needs ! ” . . . And the child 
said, “ I will help you ; ” and straightway 
crept into her arms and nestled there as one 
who would not be denied . . . and she took 
up her burden and walked. . . . And as she 
climbed the weight grew lighter and lighter, 
till at length the clinging arms seemed to 
give her peace and strength . . . and when 
she neared the crest of the highest mountain 
she felt new life throbbing in her veins and 
new hopes stirring in her heart, and she re- 
membered no more the pain and weariness 
of her journey. . . . And all at once a 
bright angel appeared to her and traced the 
letters of a word upon her forehead and took 
the child from her arms and disappeared. 
. . . And the angel had the lovely smile 
and sad eyes of her dead sister Martha . . . 
and the word she traced on Miss Vilda’s 
forehead was “ Inasmuch ” ! 


SCENE YII. .. 

The Old Homestead * 

4 

MISTRESS AND MAID FIND TO ’ THEIR AMAZE- 
MENT THAT A CHILD, MORE THAN ALL OTHER 
GIFTS, BRINGS HOPE WITH IT AND FORWARD 
LOOKING THOUGHTS. 

It was called the White Farm, not be- 
cause that was an unusual color in Pleasant 
River. Nineteen out of every twenty houses 
in the village were painted white, for it 
had not then entered the casual mind that 
any other course was desirable or possible. 
Occasionally, a man of riotous imagination 
would substitute two shades of buff, or make 
the back of his barn red, but the spirit of 
invention stopped there, and the majority of 
sane people went on painting white. But 
Miss Avilda Cummins was blessed with a 
larger income than most of the inhabitants 
of Pleasant River, and all her buildings, 
the great house, the sheds, the carriage and 
dairy houses, the fences and the barn, were 
always kept in a state of dazzling purity; 


TIMOTHY* S QUEST. 


75 


u as if,” the neighbors declared, “ S’manthy 
Ann Ripley went over ’em every morning 
with a dust-cloth.” 

It was merely an accident that the car- 
riage and work horses chanced to be white, 
and that the original white cats of the family 
kept on having white kittens to decorate the 
front doorsteps. It was not accident, how- 
ever, but design, that caused Jabe Slocum 
to scour the country for a good white cow 
and persuade Miss Cummins to swap off the 
old red one, so that the 44 critters ” in the 
barn should match. 

Miss Avilda had been born at the White 
Farm ; father and mother had been taken 
from there to the old country churchyard, 
and “ Martha, aged 17,” poor, pretty, will- 
ful Martha, the greatest pride and greatest 
sorrow of the family, was lying under the 
apple trees in the garden. 

Here also the little Samantha Ann Ripley 
had come as a child years ago, to be play- 
mate, nurse, and companion to Martha, and 
here she had stayed ever since, as friend, 
adviser, and 44 company-keeper ” to the lonely 
Miss Cummins. Nobody in Pleasant River 
would have dared to think of her as any- 
body’s 44 hired help,” though she did receive 


76 


TIMOTEY'S QUEST. 


bed and board, and a certain sum yearly for 
her services ; but she lived with Miss Cum- 
mins on equal terms, as was the custom in 
the good old New England villages, doing 
the lion’s share of the work, and marking 
her sense of the situation by washing the 
dishes while Miss Avilda wiped them, and 
by never suffering hei to feed the pig or to 
go down cellar. 

Theirs had been a dull sort of life, in 
which little had happened to make them 
grow into sympathy with the outside world. 
All the sweetness of Miss Avilda’s nature 
had turned to bitterness and gall after 
Martha’s disgrace, sad home-coming, and 
death. There had been much to forgive, 
and she had not had the grace nor the 
strength to forgive it until it was too late. 
The mystery of death had unsealed her eyes, 
and there had been a moment when the sad 
and bitter woman might have been drawn 
closer to the great Father- heart, there to 
feel the throb of a Divine compassion that 
would have sweetened the trial and made 
the burden lighter. But the minister of the 
parish proved a sorry comforter and adviser 
in those hours of trial. The Reverend 
Joshua Beckwith, whose view of God’s uni- 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


77 


verse was about as broad as if be bad lived 
on the inside of bis own pork-barrel, had 
cherished certain strong and unrelenting 
opinions concerning Martha’s final destina- 
tion, which were not shared by Miss Cum- 
mins. Martha, therefore, was not laid with 
the elect, but was put to rest in the orchard, ' 
under the kindly, untheological shade of the 
apple trees ; and they scattered their tinted 
blossoms over her little white headstone, shed 
their fragrance about her quiet grave, and 
dropped their ruddy fruit in the high grass 
that covered it, just as tenderly and respect- 
fully as if they had been regulation willows. 
The Reverend Joshua thus succeeded in dry- 
ing up the springs of human sympathy in 
Miss Avilda’s heart when most she needed 
comfort and gentle teaching ; and, distrust- 
ing God for the moment, as well as his in- 
exorable priest, she left her place in the old 
meeting-house where she had “ worshiped ” 
ever since she had acquired adhesiveness 
enough to stick to a pew, and was not seen 
there again for many years. The Reverend 
Joshua had died, as all men must and as 
most men should ; and a mild -voiced succes- 
sor reigned in his place ; so the Cummins 
pew was occupied once more. 


7 8 TIMO THY'S Q UES T. 

Samantha Ann Ripley had had her heart 
history too, — one of a different kind. She 
had “ kept company ” with David Milliken 
for a little matter of twenty years, off and 
on, and Miss Avilda had expected at various 
times to lose her friend and helpmate ; but 
fear of this calamity had at length been quite 
put to rest by the fourth and final rupture 
of the bond, five years before. 

There had always been a family feud be- 
tween the Ripleys and the Millikens; and 
when the young people took it into their 
heads to fall in love with each other in spite 
of precedent or prejudice, they found that 
the course of true love ran in anything but 
a smooth channel. It was, in fact, a sort of 
village Montague and Capulet affair ; but 
David and Samantha were no Romeo and 
Juliet. The climate and general conditions 
of life at Pleasant River were not favorable 
to the development of such exotics. The 
old people interposed barriers between the 
young ones as long as they lived ; and when 
they died, Dave Milliken’s spirit was broken, 
and he began to annoy the valiant Samantha 
by what she called his “ meechin’ ” ways. 
In one of his moments of weakness he took 
a widowed sister to live with him, a certain 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


79 


Mrs. Pettigrove, of Edge wood, who inherited 
the Milliken objection to Ripleys, and who 
widened the breach and brought Samantha 
to the point of final and decisive rupture. 
The last straw was the statement, sown 
broadcast by Mrs. Pettigrove, that “ Sa- 
manthy Ann Ripley’s father never would 
’a’ died if he ’d ever had any doctorin’ ; but 
’t was the gospel truth that they never had 
nobody to ’tend him but a hom’pathy man 
from Scratch Corner, who, of course, bein’ a 
hom’path, did n’t know no more about doc- 
torin’ than Cooper’s cow.” 

Samantha told David after this that she 
didn’t want to hear him open his mouth 
again, nor none of his folks ; that she was 
through with the whole lot of ’em forever and 
ever, ’n’ she wished to the Lord she ’d had 
sense enough to put her foot down fifteen 
years ago, ’n’ she hoped he ’d enjoy bein' 
tread underfoot for the rest of his natural 
life, ’n’ she would n’t speak to him again 
if she met him in her porridge dish.” She 
then slammed the door and went upstairs 
to cry as if she were sixteen, as she watched 
him out of sight. Poor Dave Milliken! 
just sweet and earnest and strong enough to 
suffer at being worsted by circumstances, 


80 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


but never quite strong enough to conquel 
them. 

And it was to this household that Tim- 
othy had brought his child for adoption. 

When Miss Avilda opened her eyes, the 
morning after the arrival of the children, 
she tried to remember whether anything 
had happened to give her such a strange 
feeling of altered conditions. It was Satur- 
day, — baking day, — that could n’t be it ; 
and she gazed at the little dimity-curtained 
window and at the picture of the Death-bed 
of Calvin, and wondered what was the mat- 
ter. 

Just then a child’s laugh, bright, merry, 
tuneful, infectious, rang out from some dis- 
tant room, and it all came back to her as 
Samantha Ann opened the door and peered 
in. 

“I’ve got breakfast ’bout ready,” she 
said ; “ but I wish, soon ’s you ’re dressed, 
you ’d step down ’n’ see to it, ’n’ let me 
wash the baby. I guess water was skerse 
where she come from ! ” 

“ They ’re awake, are they ? ” 

“ Awake ? Land o’ liberty ! As soon as 
*t was light, and before the boy had opened 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


81 


bis eyes, Gay was up V poundin’ on all the 
doors, V hollorin’ ‘ S’manfy ’ (beats all 
how she got holt o’ my name so quick !), so 
’t I thought sure she ’d disturb your sleep. 
See here, Vildy, we want those children 
should look respectable the few days they ’re 
here. I don’t see how we can rig out the 
boy, but there ’s those old things of Mar- 
thy’s in the attic ; seems like it might be a 
blessin’ on ’em if we used ’em this way.” 

“ I thought of it myself in the night,” an- 
swered Vilda briefly. “ You ’ll find the key 
of the trunk in the light- stand drawer. You 
see to the children, and I ’ll get breakfast 
on the table. Has Jabe come? ” 

“ No ; he sent a boy to milk, ’n’ said 
he ’d be right along. You know what that 
means ! ” 

Miss Yilda moved about the immaculate 
kitchen, frying potatoes and making tea, set- 
ting on extra portions of bread and dough* 
nuts and a huge pitcher of milk ; while 
various noises, strange enough in that quiet 
house, floated down from above. 

“ This is dreadful hard on Samanthy,” 
she reflected. “ I don’t know ’s I ’d ought 
to have put it on her, knowing how she 
hates confusion and company, and all that ; 


82 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


but she seemed to think we ’d got to tough 
it out for a spell, any way ; though I don’t 
expect her temper ’ll stand the strain very 
long.” 

The fact was, Samantha was banging 
doors and slatting tin pails about furiously, 
to keep up an ostentatious show of ill humor. 
She tried her best to grunt with displeasure 
when Gay, seated in a wash-tub, crowed and 
beat the water with her dimpled hands, so 
that it splashed all over the carpet ; but all 
the time there was such a joy tugging at her 
heart-strings as they had not felt for years. 

When the bath was over, clean petticoats 
and ankle-ties were chosen out of the old 
leather trunk, and finally a little blue and 
white lawn dress. It was too long in the 
skirt, and pending the moment when Sa- 
mantha should “ take a tack in it,” it antici- 
pated the present fashion, and made Lady 
Gay look more like a disguised princess than 
ever. The gown was low-necked and short- 
sleeved, in the old style ; and Samantha was 
in despair till she found some little em- 
broidered muslin capes and full undersleeves, 
with which she covered Gay’s pink neck and 
arms. These things of beauty so wrought 
upon the child’s excitable nature that she 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


83 


could hardly keep still long enough to have 
her hair curled ; and Samantha, as the shin- 
ing rings dropped off her horny forefinger, 
was wrestling with the Evil One, in the 
shape of a small box of jewelry that she 
had found with the clothing. She knew 
that the wish was a vicious one, and that 
such gewgaws were out of place on a little 
pauper just taken in for the night ; but her 
fingers trembled with a desire to fasten the 
tiny gold ears of corn on the shoulders, or 
tie the strings of coral beads round the 
child’s pretty throat. 

When the toilet was completed, and Sa- 
mantha was emptying the tub, Gay climbed 
on the bureau and imprinted sloppy kisses 
of sincere admiration on the radiant reflec- 
tion of herself in the little looking-glass ; 
then, getting down again, she seized her 
heap of Minerva Court clothes, and, before 
the astonished Samantha could interpose, 
flung them out of the second-story window, 
where they fell on the top of the lilac 
bushes. 

“ Me does n’t like nasty old dress,” she 
explained, with a dazzling smile that was a 
justification in itself ; “ me likes pretty new 
dress ! ” and then, with one hand reaching 


84 


TIMOTHY’S QUEST. 


up to the door-knob, and the other throwing 
disarming kisses to Samantha, — “ By-by ! 
Lady Gay go circus now ! Timfy, come, 
take Lady Gay to circus ! ” 

There was no time for discipline then, 

) and she was borne to the breakfast-table, 

* where Timothy was already making ac- 
quaintance with Miss Yilda. 

Samantha entered, and Yilda, glancing 
at her nervously, perceived with relief that 
she was “ taking things easy.” Ah ! but it 
was lucky for poor David Milliken that he 
could n’t see her at that moment. Her 
whole face had relaxed ; her mouth was no 
longer a thin, hard line, but had a certain 
curve and fullness, borrowed perhaps from 
the warmth of innocent baby-kisses. Em- 
barrassment and stifled joy had brought a 
rosier color to her cheek ; Gay’s vandal hand 
had ruffled the smoothness of her sandy 
locks, so that a few stray hairs were abso- 
lutely curling with amazement that they had 
escaped from their sleek bondage ; in a word, 
Samantha Ann Ripley was lovely and lov- 
able ! 

Timothy had no eyes for any one save his 
beloved Gay, at whom he gazed with urn 
speakable admiration, thinking it impossible 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


85 


that any human being, with a single eye in 
its head, could refuse to tako such an angel 
when it was in the market. 

Gay, not being used to a regular morning 
toilet, had fought against it valiantly at 
first; but the tonic of the bath itself and 
the exercise of war had brought the color to 
her cheeks and the brightness to her eyes. 
She had forgiven Samantha, she was ready 
to be on good terms with Miss Vilda, she 
was at peace with all the world. That she 
was eating the bread of dependence did not 
trouble her in the least ! No royal visitor, 
conveying honor by her mere presence, could 
have carried off a delicate situation with 
more distinguished grace and ease. She was 
perched on a Webster’s Unabridged Diction- 
ary, and immediately began blowing bubbles 
in her mug of milk in the most reprehensible 
fashion ; and glancing up after each naughty 
effort with an irrepressible gurgle of laugh- 
ter, in which she looked so bewitching, even 
with a milky crescent over her red mouth, 
that she would have melted the heart of the 
most predestinate old misogynist in Chris- 
tendom. 

Timothy was not so entirely at his ease. 
His eyes had looked into life only a few 


86 


TIMOTHY'S QUESi. 


more summers, but their “radiant morning 
visions ” had been dispelled ; experience had 
tempered joy. Gay, however, had not ar- 
rived at an age where people’s motives can 
be suspected for an instant. If there had 
been any possible plummet with which to 
sound the depths of her unconscious phi- 
losophy, she apparently looked upon herself 
as a guest out of heaven, flung down upon 
this hospitable planet with the single respon- 
sibility of enjoying its treasures. 

O happy heart of childhood ! Your sim- 
ple creed is rich in faith, and trust, and 
hope. You have not learned that the chil- 
dren of a common Father can do aught but 
love and help one another. 


SCENE vra. 

The Old Garden . 

JABE AND SAMANTHA EXCHANGE HOSTILITIES, 
AND THE FORMER SAYS A GOOD WORD FOR 
THE LITTLE WANDERERS. 

“ God Almighty first planted a garden, 
and it is indeed the purest of all human 
pleasures,” said Lord Bacon, and Miss Vilda 
would have agreed with him. Her garden 
was not simply the purest of all her plea- 
sures, it was her only one ; and the love that 
other people gave to family, friends, or kin- 
dred she lavished on her posies. 

It was a dear, old-fashioned, odorous gar- 
den, where Dame Nature had never been 
forced but only assisted to do her duty. 
Miss Yilda sowed her seeds in the spring- 
time wherever there chanced to be room, 
and they came up and flourished and went 
to seed just as they liked, those being the 
only duties required of them. Two splen- 
did groups of fringed “ pinies,” the pride of 


88 


TIMOTHY* 8 QUEST. 


Miss Avilda’s heart, grew just inside the 
gate, and, hard by, the handsomest dahlias 
in the village, quilled beauties like carved 
rosettes of gold and coral and ivory. There 
was plenty of feathery “ sparrowgrass,” so 
handy to fill the black and yawning chasms 
of summer fireplaces and furnish green for 
“ boquets.” There was a stray peach or 
greengage tree here and there, and if a 
plain, well-meaning carrot chanced to lift its 
leaves among the poppies, why, they were all 
the children of the same mother, and Miss 
Vilda was not the woman to root out the 
invader and fling it into the ditch. There 
was a bed of yellow tomatoes, where, in the 
season, a hundred tiny golden balls hung 
among the green leaves ; and just beside 
them, in friendly equality, a tangle of pink 
sweet-williams, fragrant phlox, delicate 
bride’s -tears, canterbury bells blue as the 
June sky, none-so-pretties, gay cockscombs, 
and flaunting marigolds, which would insist 
on coming up all together, summer after 
summer, regardless of color harmonies. 
Last, but not least, there was a patch of 
sweet peas, 

“ on tiptoe for a flight, 

With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white.” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


89 


These dispensed their sweet odors so gen- 
erously that it was a favorite diversion 
among the village children to stand in rows 
outside the fence, and, elevating their bucolic 
noses, simultaneously “ sniff Miss Cummins* 
peas.” The garden was large enough to 
have little hills and dales of its own, and 
its banks sloped gently down to the river. 
There was a gnarled apple tree hidden by 
a luxuriant wild grapevine, a fit bower for 
a “ lov’d Celia ” or a “ fair Rosamond.” 
There was a spring, whose crystal waters 
were “ cabined, cribbed, confined ” within 
a barrel sunk in the earth ; a brook sing- 
ing its way among the alder bushes, and 
dripping here and there into pools, over 
which the blue harebells leaned to see them- 
selves. There was a summer-house, too, on 
the brink of the hill; a weather-stained 
affair, with a hundred names carved on its 
venerable lattices, — names of youths and 
maidens who had stood there in the moon- 
light and plighted rustic vows. 

If you care to feel a warm glow in the 
region of your heart, imagine little Timothy 
Jessup sent to play in that garden, — sent 
to play for almost the first time in his life ! 
Imagine it, I ask, for there are some things 


90 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST 1 


too sweet to prick with a pen-point. 
Timothy stayed there fifteen minutes, and 
running back to the house in a state of 
intoxicated delight went up to Samantha, and 
laying an insistent hand on hers said excit- 
edly, “ Oh, Samanthy, you did n’t tell me — 
there is shining water down in the garden ; 
not so big as the ocean, nor so still as the 
harbor, but a kind of baby river running 
along by itself with the sweetest noise, 
Please, Miss Vilda, may I take Gay to see it, 
and will it hurt it if I wash Rags in it ? ” 

“ Let ’em all go,” suggested Samantha ; 
“ there ’s Jabe dawdlin’ along the road, and 
they might as well be out from under foot.” 

“ Don’t be too hard on Jabe this morning, 
Samanthy, — he ’s been to see the Baptist 
minister at Edgewood ; you know he ’s go- 
ing to be baptized some time next month.” 

“Well, he needs it! But land sakes! 
you could n’t make them Slocums pious ’f 
you kep’ on baptizin’ of ’em till the crack 
o’ doom. I never hearn tell of a Slocum’s 
gittin’ baptized in July. They allers take 
’em after the freshets in the spring o’ the 
year, ’n’ then they have to be turrible care- 
ful to douse ’em lengthways of the river. 
Look at him, will ye ? I b’lieve he ’fl 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


91 


grown sence yesterday ! If he ’d ever stood 
stiff on his feet when he was a boy, he 
need n’t ’a’ been so everlastin’ tall ; but he 
was forever roostin’ on fences’ with his laigs 
danglin’, ’n’ the heft of his feet stretched 
’em out, — it could n’t do no dif ’rent. I 
ain’t got no patience with him. ” 

“Jabe has considerable many good 
points,” said Miss Cummins loyally ; “ he ’s 
faithful, — you always know where to find 
him.” 

“Good reason why,” retorted Samantha. 
“You always know where to find him ’cause 
he gen’ally hain’t moved sence you seen 
him last. Gittin’ religion ain’t goin’ to 
help him much. If he ever hears tell ’bout 
the gate of heaven bein’ open ’t the last day, 
he won’t ’a’ begun to begin thinkin’ ’bout 
gittin’ in till he hears the door shet in his 
face ; ’n’ then he ’ll set ri’ down ’s comf ’ta- 
ble ’s if he was inside, ’n’ say, ‘Wall, bet- 
ter luck next time : slow an’ sure ’s my 
motto ! ’ Good-mornin’, Jabe, — had your 
dinner ? ” 

“ I ain’t even hed my breakfast,” re- 
sponded Mr. Slocum easily. 

“ Blessed are the lazy folks, for they al- 
ways git their chores done for ’em,” re- 


92 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


marked Samantha scathingly, as she went to 
the buttery for provisions. 

“Wall,” said Laigs, looking at her with 
his most irritating smile, as he sat down 
at the kitohen table, “ I don’t find I git 
thru any more work by tumblin’ out o’ bed 
’t sun-up ’n I dew ’f I lay a spell ’n’ let 
the univarse git het up ’n’ runnin’ a leetle 
mite. ‘ Slow ’n’ easy goes fur in a day ’ ’s 
my motto. Rhapseny, she used to say she 
should think I ’d be ashamed to lay abed 
so late. ‘ Wall, I be,’ s’ I, ‘but I ’d ruther 
be ashamed ’n git up ! ’ But you ’re an 
awful good cook, Samanthy, if ye air allers 
in a hurry, ’n’ if yer hev got a sharp 
tongue ! ” 

“The less you say ’bout my tongue the 
better ! ” snapped Samantha. 

“ Right you are, ” answered Jabe with a 
good-natured grin, as he went on with his 
breakfast. He had a huge appetite, another 
grievance in Samantha’s eyes. She always 
said “ there was no need of his being so slab- 
sided ’n’ slack-twisted ’n’ knuckle-jointed, 
— that he eat enough in all conscience, but 
he would n’t take the trouble to find the 
victuals that would fat him up ’n’ fill out 
his bag o’ bones.” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


98 


Just as Samantha’s well-cooked viands 
began to disappear in J abe’s capacious 
mouth (he always ate precisely as if he 
were stoking an engine) his eye rested upon 
a strange object by the wood-box, and he 
put down his knife and ejaculated, “ Well,, 
I swan ! Now when ’n’ where ’d I see that 
baby-shay? Why, ’t was yesterday. Well, 
I vow, them young ones was cornin’ here, 
was they ? ” 

“ What young ones ? ” asked Miss Vilda, 
exchanging astonished glances with Saman- 
tha. 

“ And don’t begin at the book o’ Genesis 
’n’ go clean through the Bible, ’s you gen- 
’ally do. Start right in on Revelations, 
where you belong,” put in Samantha; for 
to see a man unexpectedly loaded to the 
muzzle with news, and too lazy to fire it off, 
was enough to try the patience of a saint; 
and even David Milliken would hardly have 
applied that term to Samantha Ann Ripley. 

“ Give a feller time to think, will yer ? ” 
expostulated Jabe, with his mouth full of 
pie. “ Everything comes to him as waits ’d 
be an awful good motto for you ! Where ’d 
I see ’em ? Why, I fetched ’em as fur as 
the cross-roads myself,” 


94 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


“ Well, I never ! ” “I want to know!* 
cried the two women in one breath. 

“ I picked ’em up out on the road, a little 
piece this side o’ the station. ’T was at the 
top o’ Marm Berry’s hill, that ’s jest where 
’t was. The boy was trudgin’ along draggin’ 
the baby ’n’ the basket, ’n’ I thought I’d 
give him a lift, so s’ I, ‘ Goin’ t’ the Swamp 
or t’ the Falls?’ s’ I. ‘To the Falls,’ s’ ’e. 
‘ Git in,’ s’ I, ‘ ’n’ I ’ll give yer a ride, ’f y’ 
ain’t in no hurry,’ s’ I. So in he got, 
’n’ the baby tew. When I got putty near 
home, I happened ter think I ’d oughter 
gone roun’ by the tan’ry ’n’ picked up the 
Widder Foss, ’n’ so s’ I, ‘I ain’t goin’ 
no nearer to the Falls ; but I guess your 
laigs is good for the balance o’ the way, 
ain’t they ? ’ s’ I. ‘I guess they be ! ’ s’ ’e. 
Then he thanked me ’s perlite ’s Deacon 
Sawyer’s first wife, ’n’ I left him ’n’ his 
folks in the road where I found ’em.” 

“ Did n’t you ask where he belonged nor 
where he was bound ? ” 

“ ’T ain’t my way to waste good breath 
askin’ questions ’t ain’t none o’ my bis’ness,” 
replied Mr. Slocum. 

“You’re right, it ain’t,” responded Sa- 
mantha, as she slammed the milk-pans in 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


95 


the sink ; “ ’n’ it ’s my hope that some time 
when you get good and ready to ask some- 
body somethin’ they ’ll be in too much of a 
hurry to answer you ! ” 

“ Be they any of your folks, Miss Vildy ? ” 
asked Jabe, grinning with delight at Saman- 
tha’s ill humor. 

“No,” she answered briefly. 

“ What yer cal’latin’ ter do with ’em ? ” 

“ I have n’t decided yet. The boy says 
they have n’t got any folks nor any home ; 
and I suppose it ’s our duty to find a place 
for ’em. I don’t see but we ’ve got to go to 
the expense of takin’ ’em back to the city 
and puttin’ ’em in some asylum.” 

“ How ’d they happen to come here ? ” 

“ They ran away from the city yesterday, 
and they liked the looks of this place ; that ’s 
all the satisfaction we can get out of ’em, 
and I dare say it ’s a pack of lies.” 

“ That boy would n’t tell a lie no more ’n 
a seraphim ! ” said Samantha tersely. 

“ You can’t judge folks by appearances,” 
answered Vilda. “ But anyhow, don’t talk 
to the neighbors, Jabe ; and if you have n’t 
got anything special on hand to-day, I wish 
you ’d patch the roof of the summer house 
and dig us a mess of beet greens. Keep 


96 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


the children with you, and see what you 
make of ’em ; they ’re playin’ in the garden 
aow.” 

“ All right. I ’ll size ’em up the best I 
ken, tho’ mebbe it ’ll hender me in my 
work some ; but time was made for slaves, 
as the molasses said when they told it to 
hurry up in cold weather.” 

Two hours later, Miss Yilda looked from 
the kitchen window and saw Jabez Slocum 
coming across the road from the garden. 
Timothy trudged beside him, carrying the 
basket of greens in one hand, and the other 
locked in Jabe’s huge paw ; his eyes up- 
turned and shining with pleasure, his lips 
moving as if he were chattering like a mag- 
pie. Lady Gay was just where you might 
have expected to find her, mounted on the 
towering height of Jabe’s shoulder, one tiny 
hand grasping his weather-beaten straw hat, 
while with the other she whisked her willing 
steed with an alder switch which had evi- 
dently been cut for that purpose by the vic- 
tim himself. 

“ That ’s the way he ’s sizin’ of ’em up,” 
said Samantha, leaning over Yilda’s shoulder 
with a smile. “ I ’ll bet they ’ve sized him 
up enough sight better ’n he has them ! ” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


97 


Jabe left the children outside, and came 
in with the basket. Putting his hat in the 
wood -box and hitching up his trousers im- 
pressively, he sat down on the settle. 

“ Them ain’t no children to be wanderin’ 
i about the earth afoot ’n’ alone, ‘ same ’s 
Hitty went to the beach;’ nor they ain’t 
no common truck ter be put inter ’sylums 
’n’ poor-farms. There ’s some young ones 
that ’s so everlastin’ chuckle-headed V hom- 
bly ’n’ contrairy that they ain’t hardly wuth 
savin’ ; but these ain’t that kind. The 
baby, now you ’ve got her cleaned up, is 
han’somer ’n any baby on the river, ’n’ a 
reg’lar chunk o’ sunshine besides. I ’d be 
willin’ ter pay her a little suthin’ for livin’ 
alongside. The boy — well, the boy is a 
extra-ordinary boy. We got on tergether ’s 
slick as if we was twins. That boy ’s got 
idees, that ’s what he ’s got ; ’n’ he ’s likely 
to grow up into — well, ’most anything.” 

“ If you think so highly of ’em, why don’t 
you adopt ’em ? ” asked Miss Yilda curtly. 
“ That ’s what they seem to think folks ought 
to do.” 

“I ain’t sure but I shall,” Mr. Slocum 
responded unexpectedly. “ If you can’t find 
a better home for ’em somewheres, I ain’t 


98 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


sure but 1 ’ll take ’em myself. Land sakes! 
if Rhapseny was alive I ’d adopt ’em quicker 
’n blazes ; but marm won’t take to the idee 
very strong, I don’t s’pose, ’n’ she ain’t 
much on bringin’ up children, as I ken tes- 
tify. Still, she ’s a heap better ’n a trick asy- 
lum with a six-foot stone wall round it, when 
yer come to that. But I b’lieve we ken do 
better for ’em. I can say to folks, 4 See here : 
here ’s a couple o’ smart, han’some children. 
You can have ’em for nothin’, ’n’ need n’t 
resk the onsartainty o’ gittin’ married ’n’ 
raisin ’ yer own ; ’n’ when yer come ter that, 
yer would n’t stan’ no charnce o’ gittin’ any 
as likely as these air, if ye did.’ ” 

44 That ’s true as the gospel ! ” said Saman- 
tha. It nearly killed her to agree with him, 
but the words were fairly wrung from her 
unwilling lips by his eloquence and wisdom. 

44 W ell, we ’ll see what we can do for ’em,” 
said Yilda in a non-committal tone; “and 
here they ’ll have to stay, for all I see, tell 
we can get time to turn round and look ’em 
up a place.” 

“ And the way their edjercation has been 
left be,” continued Mr. Slocum, 44 is a burn- 
in’ shame in a Christian country. I don’ 
b’lieve they ever see the inside of a school* 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


99 


house ! I ’ve learned ’em more this mornin’ 
’n they ever hearn tell of before, but they ’re 
’s ignorant ’s Cooper’s cow yit. They don’ 
know tansy from sorrel, nor slip’ry ellum 
from pennyroyal, nor burdock from pig. 
weed ; they don’ know a dand’lion from a 
hole in the ground ; they don’ know where 
the birds put up when it comes on night; 
they never see a brook afore, nor a bull-frog ; 
they never hearn tell o’ cat-o’-nine-tails, nor 
jack-lanterns, nor see - saws. Land sakes ! 
we got ter talkin’ ’bout so many things that 
I clean forgot the summer-house roof. But 
there ! this won’t do for me ; I must be 
goin’ ; there ain’t no rest for the workin’- 
man in this country.” 

“ If there wa’n’t no work for him, he ’d 
be wuss off yet,” responded Samantha. 

“ Right ye are, Samanthy ! Look here, 
when ’d you want that box you give me to 
fix?” 

“ I wanted it before hayin’, but I s’pose 
any time before Thanksgivin’ ’ll do, seein’ 
it ’s you.” 

“ What ’s wuth doin’ ’t all ’s wuth takin’ 
time over, ’s my motto,” said Jabe cheer- 
fully, “ but seein’ it ’s you, I ’ll nail that 
cover on ter night or bust I ” 


SCENE IX. 

A Village Sabbath. 

“ NOW THE END OF THE COMMANDMENT IS 
CHARITY, OUT OF A PURE HEART.” 

It was Sunday morning, and tlie very 
peace of God was brooding over Pleasant 
River. Timothy, Rags, and Gay were play- 
ing decorously in the orchard. Maria was 
hitched to an apple-tree in the side yard, 
and stood there serenely with her eyes half 
closed, dreaming of oats past and oats to 
come. Miss Yilda and Samantha issued 
from the mosquito - netting door, clad in 
Sunday best ; and the children approached 
nearer, that they might share in the excite- 
ment of the departure for “ meeting.” Gay 
clamored to go, but was pacified by the gift 
of a rag-doll that Samantha had made for 
her the evening before. It was a mon- 
strosity, but Gay dipped it instantly in the 
alembic of her imagination, and it became a 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


101 


beautiful, responsive little daughter, which 
she clasped close in her arms, and on which 
she showered the tenderest tokens of ma- 
ternal affection. 

Miss Vilda handed Timothy a little green- 
paper-covered book, before she climbed into 
the buggy. “ That ’s a catechism,” she 
said ; “ and if you ’ll be a good boy and 
learn the first six pages, and say ’em to me 
this afternoon, Samantha ’ll give you a top 
that you can spin on week days.” 

44 What is a catechism ? ” asked Timothy, 
as he took the book. 

44 It ’s a Sunday-school lesson.” 

44 Oh, then I can learn it,” said Timothy, 
brightening ; “ I learned three for Miss 
Dora, in the city.” 

44 Well, I ’m thankful to hear that you’ve 
had some spiritual advantages ; now, stay 
right here in the orchard till Jabe comes; 
and don’t set the house afire,” she added, 
as Samantha took the reins and raised them 
for the mighty slap on Maria’s back which 
was necessary to wake her from her Sunday 
slumber. 

44 Why would I want to set the house 
afire ? ” Timothy asked wonderingly. 

44 Well, I don’t know ’s you would want 


102 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


to, but I thought you might get to playin’ 
with matches, though I ’ve hid ’em all.” 

“ Play with matches ! ” exclaimed Timo- 
thy, in wide-eyed astonishment that a match 
could appeal to anybody as a desirable play- 
thing. “Oh, no, thank you; I shouldn’t 
have thought of it.” 

“ I don’t know as we ought to have left 
’em alone,” said Vilda, looking back, as Sa- 
mantha urged the moderate Maria over the 
road ; “ though I don’t know exactly what 
they could do.” 

“ Except run away,” said Samantha re- 
flectively. 

“ I wish to the land they would ! It 
would be the easiest way out of a trouble- 
some matter. Every day that goes by will 
make it harder for us to decide what to do 
with ’em ; for you can’t do by those you 
know the same as if they were strangers.” 

There was a long main street running 
through the village north and south. To- 
ward the north it led through a sweet-scented 
wood, where the grass tufts grew in verdant 
strips along the little-traveled road. It had 
been a damp morning, and, though now the 
sun was shining brilliantly, the spiders’ webs 
still covered the fields ; gossamer laces of 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


103 


moist, spun silver, through which shone the 
pink and lilac of the meadow grasses. The 
wood was a quiet place, and more than once 
Miss Yilda and Samantha had discussed 
matters there which they would never have 
mentioned at the White Farm. 

Maria went ambling along serenely 
through the arcade of trees, where the sun 
went wandering softly, “ as with his hands 
before his eyes ; ” overhead, the vast blue 
canopy of heaven, and under the trees the 
soft brown leaf carpet, woven by a thou- 
sand autumns. 

“ I don’t know but I could grow to like 
the baby in time,” said Yilda, “ though it ’s 
my opinion she ’s goin’ to be dreadful trou- 
blesome ; but I ’m more ’n half afraid of the 
boy. Every time he looks at me with those 
searchin’ eyes of his, I mistrust he ’s goin’ 
to say something about Mar thy, — all on ac- 
count of his giving me such a turn when he 
came to the door.” 

“ He ’d be awful handy round the house, 
though, Yildy; that is, if he is handy, — 
pickin’ up chips, ’n’ layin’ fires, ’n’ what not ; 
but, ’s you say, he ain’t so takin’ as the baby 
at first sight. She ’s got the same winnin > 
way with her that Marthy hed ! ” 


104 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


“ Yes,” said Miss Yilda grimly ; 44 and 1 
guess it ’s the devil’s own way.” 

“ Well, yes, mebbe ; ’n’ then again mebbe 
’t ain’t. There ain’t no reason why the 
devil should own all the han’some faces ’n’ 
tunesome laughs, ’t I know of. It doos seem 
’s if beauty was turrible misleading ’n’ I ’ve 
ben glad sometimes the Lord did n’t resk 
none of it on me, for I was behind the door 
when good looks was give out, ’n’ I ’m will- 
in’ t’ own up to it ; but, all the same, I like 
to see putty faces roun’ me, ’n’ I guess when 
the Lord sets his mind on it He can make 
goodness ’n’ beauty git along comf’tably in 
the same body. When yer come to that, 
hombly folks ain't allers as good ’s they 
might be, ’n’ no comfort to anybody’s eyes, 
nuther.” 

“ You think the boy ’s all right in the 
upper story, do you ? He ’s a strange kind 
of a child, to my thinkin’.” 

44 I ain’t so sure but he ’s smarter ’n we 
be, but he talks queer, ’n’ no mistake. This 
mornin’ he was pullin’ the husks off a baby 
ear o’ corn that Jabe brought in, ’n’ s’ ’e, 
‘ S’manthy, I think the corn must be the 
happiest of all the veg’tables.’ 4 How you 
talk ! ’ s’ I ; 4 what makes you think that way V 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


105 


‘ Why, because,’ s’ ’e, ‘ God has hidden it 
away so safe, with all that shinin’ silk round 
it first, ’n’ then the soft leaves wrapped out- 
side o’ the silk. I guess it ’s God’s fav’rite 
veg’ table ; don’t you, S’manthy ? ’ s’ ’e. And 
when I was showin’ him pictures last night, 
V he see the crosses on top some o’ the city 
meetin’-houses, s’ ’e, ‘ They have two sticks 
on ’most all the churches, don’t they, S’man- 
thy ? I s’pose that ’s one stick for God, and 
the other for the peoples.’ W ell, now, don’t 
you remember Seth Pennell, o’ Buttertown, 
how queer he was when he was a boy ? We 
thought he ’d never be wuth his salt. He 
used to stan’ in the front winder ’n’ twirl 
the curtin tossel for hours to a time. And 
don’t you know it come out last year that 
he ’d wrote a reg’lar book, with covers on it 
’n’ all, ’n’ that he got five dollars a colume 
for writin’ poetry- verses for the papers ? ” 

“ Oh, well, if you mean that,” said Yilda 
argumentatively, “ I don’t call writin’ poetry 
any great test of smartness. There ain’t 
been a big fool in this village for years but 
could do somethin’ in the writin’ line. I 
guess it ain’t much of a trick, if you have a 
mind to put yourself down to it. For my 
part, I ’ve always despised to see a strong, 


106 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


hulkin’ man, that could handle a hoe or a 
pitchfork, sit down and twirl a pen-stalk.” 

“ Well, I ain’t so sure. I guess the Lord 
hes his own way o’ managin’ things. We 
ain’t all cal’lated to hoe pertaters nor yet to 
write poetry- verses. There ’s as much dif- 
’rence in folks ’s there is in anybody. Now, 
I can take care of a dairy as well as the next 
one, ’n’ nobody was ever hearn to complain 
o’ my butter; but there was that lady in 
New York State that used to make flowers 
’n’ fruit ’n’ graven images out o’ her churn- 
in’s. You ’ve hearn tell o’ that piece she 
carried to the Centennial? Now, no sech 
doin’s ’s that ever come into my head. I ’ve 
went on makin’ round balls for twenty years ; 
’n’, massy on us, don’t I remember when my 
old butter stamp cracked, ’n’ I could n’t get 
another with an ear o’ corn on it, ’n’ hed to 
take one with a beehive, why, I was that 
homesick I could n’t bear to look my butter 
’n the eye ! But that woman would have 
had a new picter on her balls every day, 
I should n’t wonder ! (For massy’s sake, 
Maria, don’t stan’ stock still ’n’ let the flies 
eat yer right up !) No, I tell yer, it takes 
all kinds o’ folks to make a world. Now, I 
could n’t never read poetry. It ’s so dull, it 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


107 


makes me feel ’s if I ’d been trottin’ all day 
in the sun ! But there ’s folks that can stan’ 
it, or they would n’t keep on turnin’ of it out. 
The children are nice children enough, but 
have they got any folks anywhere, ’n’ what 
kind of folks, ’n’ where ’d they come from, 
anyhow, that ’s what we ’ve got to find out, 
’n’ 1 guess it ’ll be consid’able of a chore ! ” 

“ I don’t know but you ’re right. I 
thought some of sendin’ Jabe to the city 
to-morrow.” 

“ Jabe ? Well, I s’pose he ’d be back by 
’nother spring ; but who ’d we get ter shovel 
us out this winter, seem’ as there ain’t more 
’n three men in the whole village? Aunt 
Hitty says twenty-year engagements ’s goin’ 
out o’ fashion in the big cities, ’n’ I ’m glad 
if they be. They ’d ’a’ never come in, I told 
her, if there ’d ever been an extry man in 
these parts, but there never was. If you 
got holt o’ one by good luck, you had ter 
keep holt, if ’t was two years or twenty-two, 
or go without. I used ter be too proud ter 
go without ; now I ’ve got more sense, thanks 
be! Why don’t you go to the city your- 
self, Yildy ? Jabe Slocum ain’t got sprawl 
enough to find out anythin’ wuth knowin’.” 

“ I suppose I could go, though I don’t 


108 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


like the prospect of it very much, I have n’t 
been there for years, but I ’d ought to look 
after my property there once in a while. 
Deary me ! it seems as if we were n’t ever 
going to have any more peace.” 

“ Mebbe we ain’t,” said Samantha, as they 
wound up the meeting-house hill ; “ but ain’t 
we hed ’bout enough peace for one spell? 
If peace was the best thing we could get in 
this world, we might as well be them old 
cows by the side o’ the road there. There 
ain’t nothin’ so peaceful as a cow, when you 
come to that ! ” 

The two women went into the church more 
perplexed in mind than they would have 
cared to confess. During the long prayer 
(the minister could talk to God at much 
greater length than he could talk about 
Him), Miss Vilda prayed that the Lord 
would provide the two little wanderers with 
some more suitable abiding-place than the 
White Farm ; and that, failing this, He 
would inform his servant whether there was 
anything unchristian in sending them to a 
comfortable public asylum. She then re- 
minded Heaven that she had made the For- 
eign Missionary Society her residuary lega- 
tee (a deed that established her claim to 


TIMOTEY'S QUEST. 


109 


being a zealous member of the fold), so that 
she could scarcely be blamed for not wish- 
ing to divert her fortune to the support of 
two orphan children. 

Well, it is no great wonder that so faulty 
a prayer did not bring the wished-for light 
at once ; but the ministering angels, who had 
the fatherless little ones in their care, did 
not allow Miss Vilda’s mind to rest quietly. 
Just as the congregation settled itself after 
the hymn, and the palm-leaf fans began to 
sway in the air, a swallow flew in through 
the open window ; and, after fluttering to 
and fro over the pulpit, hid itself in a dark 
corner, unnoticed by all save the small boys 
of the congregation, to whom it was, of 
course, a priceless boon. But Miss Vilda 
could not keep her wandering thoughts on 
the sermon any more than if she had been 
a small boy. She was anything but super- 
stitious ; but she had seen that swallow, or 
some of its ancestors, before. ... It had 
flown into the church on the very Sunday 
of her mother’s death. . . . They had left 
her sitting in the high-backed rocker by the 
window, the great family Bible and her spec- 
tacles on the little light -stand beside her. 
„ . . When they returned from church, they 


110 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


had found their mother sitting as they left 
her, with a smile on her face, but silent and 
lifeless. . . . And through the glass of the 
spectacles, as they lay on the printed page, 
Yilda had read the words, “ For a bird of 
the air shall carry the voice, and that which 
hath wings shall tell the matter ; ” had read 
them wonderingly, and marked the place 
with reverent fingers. . . . The swallow 
flew in again, years afterward. . . . She 
could not remember the day or the month, 
but she could never forget the summer, for 
it was the last bright one of her life, the last 
that pretty Martha ever spent at the White 
Farm. . . . And now here was the swallow 
again. . . . “For a bird of the air shall 
carry the voice, and that which hath wings 
shall tell the matter. ,, Miss Yilda looked 
on the book and tried to follow the hymn ; 
but passages of Scripture flocked into her 
head in place of good Dr. Watts’s verses, 
and when the little melodeon played the in- 
terludes she could only hear : — 

“ Yea, the sparrow hath found her an 
house and the swallow a nest where she may 
lay her young, even Thy altars, O Lord of 
hosts, my King and my God.” 

“ As a bird that wandereth from her nest, 
80 is a man that wandereth from his place.” 


TIMOTHY’S QUEST. 


Ill 


“ The foxes have holes and the birds of 
the air have nests, but the Son of man hath 
not where to lay his head.” 

And then the text her bewildered 

ears, and roused her trom one reverie to 
plunge her in another. It was chosen, as it 
chanced, from the First Epistle of Timothy, 
chapter first, verse fifth : “ Now the end. of 
the commandment is charity, out of a pure 
heart.” 

“ That meatas the Missionary Society,” 
said Miss Vilda to her conscience, doggedly ; 
but she knew better. The parson, the text, 
— or was it the bird ? — had brought the 
message; but for the moment she did not 
lend the hearing ear or the understanding 
heart. 


SCENE X. 


The Supper Table . 

AUNT HITTY COMES TO “ MAKE OVER,” AND SUP* 
PLIES BACK NUMBERS TO ALL THE VILLAGE 
HISTORIES. 

Aunt Hitty, otherwise Mrs. Silas Tar- 
box, was as cheery and loquacious a person 
as you could find in a Sabbath day’s journey. 
She was armed with a substantial amount of 
knowledge at almost every conceivable point ; 
but if an unexpected emergency ever did 
arise, her imagination was equal to the strain 
put upon it and rose superior to the occasion. 
Yet of an evening, or on Sunday, she was no 
village gossip ; it was only when you put a 
needle in her hand or a cutting-board in her 
lap that her memory started on its inter- 
minable journeyings through the fields of 
the past. She knew every biography and 
every “ ought-to-be-ography ” in the county, 
and could tell you the branches of every 
genealogical tree in the township. 

It was dusk at the White Farm, and a 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


118 


late supper was spread upon the hospitable 
board. Aunt Hitty was always sure of a 
bountiful repast. If one were going to 
economize, one would not choose for that 
purpose the day when the village seamstress 
came to sew ; especially when the aforesaid 
lady served the community in the stead of 
a local newspaper. 

The children had eaten their bread and 
milk, and were out in the barn with Jabe, 
watching the milking. Aunt Hitty was in 
a cheerful mood as she reflected on her day’s 
achievements. Out of Dr. Jonathan Cum- 
mins’ old cape coat she had carved a pair of 
brief trousers and a vest for Timothy ; out 
of Mrs. Jonathan Cummins’ waterproof a 
serviceable jacket; and out of Deacon Abi- 
jah Cummins’ linen duster an additional 
coat and vest for warm days. The owners of 
these garments had been dead many years, 
but nothing was ever thrown away (and, for 
that matter, very little given away) at the 
White Farm, and the ancient habiliments 
had finally been diverted to a useful pur- 
pose. 

“ I hope I shall relish my vittles to-night,” 
said Aunt Hitty, as she poured her tea into 
her saucer, and set the cup in her little blue 


114 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


“ cup-plate ; ” “ but I ’ve had the neuralgy so 
in my face that it ’s be’n more ’n ten days 
sence I ’ve be’n able to carry a knife to my 
mouth. . . . Your meat vittles is always so 
tasty, Miss Cummins. I was sayin’ to Mis’ 
Sawyer last week I think she lets her beef 
hang too long. Its dretful tender, but I 
don’t b’lieve its hullsome. For my part, as 
I ’ve many a time said to Si, I like meat with 
some chaw to it. . . . Mis’ Sawyer don’t 
put half enough vittles on her table. She 
thinks it scares folks ; it don’t me a mite, — 
it makes me ’s hungry as a wolf. When I 
set a table for comp’ny I pile on a hull lot, 
*n’ I find it kind o’ discourages ’em. . . . 
Mis’ Southwick ’s hevin’ a reg’lar brash o’ 
house-cleanin’. She ’s too p’ison neat for 
any earthly use, that woman is. She ’s fixed 
clam-shell borders roun’ all her garding 
beds, an’ got enough left for a pile in one 
corner, where she ’s goin’ to set her oleander 
kag. Then she ’s bought a haircloth chair 
and got a new three-ply carpet in her parlor, 
’n’ put the old one in the spare-room ’n’ the 
back -entry. Her daughter ’s down here 
from New Haven. She ’s married into one 
of the first families o’ Connecticut, Lobelia 
has, ’n’ she puts on a good many airs. She ’s 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


115 


rigged out her mother’s parlor with lace our- 
tains ’n’ one thing ’n’ ’other, ’n’ wants it 
called the drawin’-room. Did ye ever hear 
tell such foolishness ? 4 Drawin’-room ! ’ s’ I 

to Si ; 1 what ’s it goin’ to draw ? Nothin’ 
but flies, I guess likely ! ’ . . . Mis’ Pen- 
nell ’s got a new girl to help round the 
house, — one o’ them pindlin’ light - com- 
plected Smith girls, from the Swamp, — 
look ’s if they was nussed on bonny-clabber. 
She ’s so hombly I sh’d think ’t would make 
her back ache to carry her head round. She 
ain’t very smart, neither. Her mother sent 
word she ’d pick up ’n’ do better when she 
got her growth. That made Mis’ Pennell 
hoppin’ mad. She said she did n’t cal’late 
to pay a girl three shillin’s a week for grow- 
in’. Mis’ Pennell ’s be’n feelin’ consid’able 
slim, or she wouldn’t ’a’ hired help; it’s 
just like pullin’ teeth for Deacon Pennell to 
pay out money for anything like that. He 
watches every mouthful the girl puts into 
her mouth, ’n’ it’s made him ’bout down 
sick to see her fleshin’ up on his vittles. . . . 
They say he has her put the mornin’ coffee- 
groun’s to dry on the winder-sill, ’n’ then 
has ’em scalt over for dinner; but, there! 
I don’ know ’s there ’s a mite o’ truth in it, 


116 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


so I won’t repeat it. They went to him to 
git a subscription for the new hearse the other 
day. Land sakes ! we need one bad enough. 
I thought for sure, at the last funeral we 
had, that they ’d never git Mis’ Strout to the 
graveyard safe and sound. I kep’ a-tliinkin’ 
all the way how she ’d ’a’ took on, if she ’d 
be’n alive. She was the most timersome wo- 
man ’t ever was. She was a Thomson, ’n’ all 
the Thomsons was scairt at their own sliad- 
ders. Ivory Strout rid right behind the 
hearse, ’n’ he says his heart was in his mouth 
the hull durin’ time for fear ’t would break 
down. He did n’t git much comfort out o’ 
the occasion, I guess! Wa’n’t he mad he hed 
to ride in the same buggy with his mother- 
in-law ! The minister planned it all out, ’n’ 
wrote down the order o’ the mourners, V 
passeled him out with old Mis’ Thomson. 1 
was stan’in’ close by, ’n’ I heard him say he 
s’posed he could go that way if he must, but 
’t would spile the hull blamed thing for him ! 
. . . Well, as I was sayin’, the seleckmen 
went to Deacon Pennell to get a contribution 
towards buyin’ the new hearse ; an’ do you 
know, he would n’t give ’em a dollar ? Ho 
told ’em he gave five dollars towards the 
other one, twenty years ago, ’n’ had n’t neve* 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


117 


got a cent’s worth o’ use out of it. That ’s 
Deacon Pennell all over ! As Si says, if the 
grace o’ God wa’n’t given to all of us with- 
out money ’n’ without price, you would n’t 
never hev ketched Deacon Pennell experi- 
encin’ religion ! It ’s got to be a free gospel 
‘‘t would convict him o’ sin, that ’s certain ! 
• . . They say Seth Thatcher ’s married out 
in Iowy. Kis mother ’s tickled ’most to 
death. She heerd he was settin’ up with a 
girl out there, ’n’ she was scairt to death for 
fear he ’d get served as Lemuel ’n’ Cyrus 
was. The Thatcher boys never hed any 
luck gettin’ married, ’n’ they always took 
disappointments in love tumble hard. You 
know Cyrus set in that front winder o’ Mis’ 
Thatcher’s, ’n’ rocked back ’n’ forth for ten 
year, till he wore out five cane - bottomed 
cheers, ’n’ then rocked clean through, down 
cellar, all on account o’ Crany Ann Sweat. 
Well, I hope she got her come-uppance in 
another world, — she never did in this ; she 
married well ’n’ lived in Boston. . . . Mis’ 
Thatcher hopes Seth ’ll come home to live. 
She ’s dretful lonesome in that big house, all 
alone. She ’d oughter have somebody for a 
company-keeper. She can’t see nothin’ but 
trees V cows from her winders. . . . Beats 


118 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


all, the places they used to put houses. . . • 
Either they ’d get ’em right under foot so ’t 
you ’d most tread on ’em when you walked 
along the road, or else they ’d set ’em clean 
back in a lane, where the women folks 
could n’t see face o’ clay week in ’n’ week 
out. . . . 

“Joel Whitten’s widder ’s just drawed his 
pension along o’ his bein’ in the war o’ 1812. 
... It ’s took ’em all these years to fix it. 
. . . Massy sakes ! don’t some folks have 
their luck buttered in this world ? . . . She 
was his fourth wife, ’n’ she never lived with 
him but thirteen days ’fore he up ’n’ died. 
... It doos seem ’s if the guv’ment might 
look after things a little mite closer. . . . 
Talk about J oel Whitten’s bein’ in the war 
o’ 1812 ! Everybody knows Joel Whitten 
would n’t have fit a skeeter ! He never got 
any further ’n Scratch Corner, any way, ’n’ 
there he dim a tree or hid behind a hen- 
coop somewheres till the regiment got out o’ 
sight. . . . Yes : one, two, three, four, — 
Huldy was his fourth wife. His first was a 
Hogg, from Hoggses Mills. The second was 
Dorcas Doolittle, aunt to Jabe Slocum ; she 
did n’t know enough to make soap, Dorcas 
didn’t . . . Then there was Delia Weeks, 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST, 


119 


from the Lower Corner. . . . She did n’t live 
long. . . . There was somethin’ wrong with 
Delia. . . . She was one o’ the thin-blooded, 
white-livered kind. . . . You could n’t get 
her warm, no matter how hard you tried. 
. . . She ’d set over a roarin’ fire in the 
cook-stove even in the prickliest o’ the dog- 
days. . . . The mill-folks used to say the 
Whittens burnt more cut-roun’s ’n’ stick- 
ens ’n any three fam’lies in the village. 
. . . Well, after Delia died, then come 
Huldy’s turn, ’n’ it ’s she, after all, that ’s 
drawed the pension. . . . Huldy took Joel’s 
death consid’able hard, but I guess she’ll 
perk up, now she ’s come int’ this money. 
. . . She’s awful leaky-minded, Huldy is, 
but she ’s got tender feelin’s. . . . One day 
she happened in at noon-time, ’n’ set down 
to the table with Si ’n’ I. . . . All of a sud- 
den t she bust right out cryin’ when Si was 
offerin’ her a piece o’ tripe, ’n’ then it come 
out that she could n’t never bear the sight o’ 
tripe, it reminded her so of J oel ! It seems 
tripe was a favorite dish o’ Joel’s. All his 
wives cooked it firstrate. . . . Jabe Slocum, 
seems to set consid’able store by them chil- 
dren, don’t he ? ... I guess he ’ll never 
ketch up with his work, now he ’s got them 


120 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


hangin’ to his heels. . . . He doos beat all 
for slowness ! Slocum ’s a good name for 
him, that ’s certain. An’ ’s if that wa’n’t 
enough, his mother was a Stillwell, V her 
mother was a Doolittle ! . . . The Doolittles 
was the slowest fam’ly in Lincoln County. 
(Thank you, I ’m well helped, Samanthy.) 
Old Cyrus Doolittle was slower ’n a toad 
funeral. He was a carpenter by trade, V 
he was twenty-five years buildin’ his house ; 
V it warn’t no great, either. . . . The 
stagin’ was up ten or fifteen years, ’n’ he 
shingled it four or five times before he got 
roun’, for one patch o’ shingles used to wear 
out ’fore he got the next patch on. He ’n y 
Mis’ Doolittle lived in two rooms in the L, 
There was elegant banisters, but no stairs tG 
’em, ’n’ no entry floors. There was a tip- 
top cellar, but there wa’n’t no way o’ gittin’ 
down to it, ’n’ there wa’n’t no conductors to 
the cisterns. There was only one door panel 
painted in the parlor. Land sakes ! the 
neighbors used to happen in ’bout every 
week for years ’n’ years, hopin’ he ’d get 
another one finished up, but he never did, — 
not to my knowledge. . . . Why, it ’s the 
gospel truth that when Mis’ Doolittle died 
he had to have her embalmed, so ’t he could 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


121 


git the front door hung for the fun’ral ! 
(No more tea, I thank you-, my cup ain’t 
out.) . . . Speakin’ o’ slow folks, Elder 
Banks tells an awful good story ’bout Jabe 
Slocum. . . . There ’s another man down 
to Edgewood, Aaron Peek by name, that ’s 
’bout as lazy as Jabe. An’ one day, when 
the loafers roun’ the store was talkin’ ’bout 
’em, all of a suddent they see the two of ’em 
startin’ to come down Marm Berry’s hill, 
right in plain sight of the store. . . . Well, 
one o’ the Edgewood boys bate one o’ the 
Pleasant River boys that they could tell 
which one of ’em was the laziest by the way 
they come down that hill. ... So they all 
watched, ’n’ bime by, when Jabe was most 
down to the bottom of the hill, they was 
struck all of a heap to see him break into a 
kind of a jog trot ’n’ run down the balance 
o’ the way. Well, then, they fell to quar- 
relin’ ; for o’ course the Pleasant River 
folks said Aaron Peek was the laziest, ’n’ 
the Edgewood boys declared he hed n’t got 
no such record for laziness ’s Jabe Slocum 
hed ; an’ when they was explainin’ of it, one 
way ’n’ ’nother, Elder Banks come along, 
’n’ they asked him to be the judge. When 
he heerd tell how ’t was, he said he agreed 


122 


TIMOTHY’S QUEST . 


with the Edge wood folks that Jabe was 
lazier ’n Aaron. ‘Well, I snum, I don’t 
see how you make that out,’ says the Plea- 
sant River boys ; ‘ for Aaron walked down, 
V Jabe run a piece o’ the way.’ ‘ If Jabe 
Slocum run,’ says the cider, as impressive as 
if he was preachin’, — ‘ if Jabe Slocum ever 
run, then ’t was because he was too doggoned 
lazy to hold back ! ’ an’ that settled it ! . . . 
No, I could n’t eat another mossel, Miss 
Cummins ; I ’ve made out a splendid supper. 
. . . You can’t git such pie ’n’ doughnuts 
anywhere else in the village, ’n’ what I say 
I mean. . . . Do you make your riz dough- 
nuts with emptin’s ? I want to know ! Si 
says there ’s more faculty in cookin’ flour 
food than there is in meat-victuals, ’n’ I 
guess he ’s ’bout right.” 

• •••••• 

It was bedtime, and Timothy was in his 
little room carrying on the most elaborate 
and complicated plots for reading the future. 
It must be known that Jabe Slocum was as 
full of signs as a Farmer’s Almanac, and he 
had given Timothy more than one formula 
for attaining his secret desires, — old, well- 
worn recipes for luck, which had been tried 
for generations in Pleasant River, and which 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 123 

•rare absolutely “ certain ” in their results. 
The favorites were : — 

“ Star bright, star light, 

First star I ’ve seen to-night, 

Wish I may, wish I might, 

Get the wish I wish to-night; if 

and one still more impressive : — 

“ Four posts upon my bed, 

Four corners overhead ; 

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 

Bless the bed I lay upon. 

Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark, 

Grant my wish and keep it dark.’* 

These rhymes had been chanted with 
great solemnity, and Timothy sat by the 
open window in the sweet darkness of the 
summer night, wishing that he and Gay 
might stay forever in this sheltered spot. 
“ I ’ll make a sign of my very own,” he 
thought. “ I ’ll get Gay’s ankle- tie, and put 
it on the window-sill, with the toe pointing 
out. Then I ’ll wish that if we are going 
to stay at the White Farm, the angels will 
turn it around, ‘ toe in * to the room, for a 
sign to me ; and if we Ve got to go, I ’ll 
wish they may leave it the other way ; and, 
oh dear, but I ’m glad it ’s so little and easy 
to move ; and then I ’ll say Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John, four times over, without 


124 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


stopping, as Jabe told me to, and then see 
how it comes out in the morning.’ , 

But the incantation was more soothing 
than the breath of Miss Vilda’s scarlet pop- 
pies, and before the magical verse had fallen 
upon the drowsy air for the third time, Tim- 
othy was fast asleep, with a smile of hope on 
his parted lips. 

There was a sweet summer shower in the 
night. The soft breezes, fresh from shaded 
dells and nooks of fern, fragrant with the 
odor of pine and vine and wet wood-violets, 
blew over the thirsty meadows and golden 
stubble-fields, and brought an hour of gentle 
rain. 

It sounded a merry tintinnabulation on 
Samantha’s milk-pans, wafted the scent of 
dripping honeysuckle into the farmhouse 
windows, and drenched the night -caps in 
which prudent farmers had dressed their 
haycocks. 

Next morning, the green world stood on 
tiptoe to welcome the victorious sun, and 
every little leaf shone as a child’s eyes might 
shine at the remembrance of a joy just past. 

A meadow lark perched on a swaying 
apple - branch above Martha’s grave, and 
poured out hi6 soul in grateful melody ; and 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 125 

Timothy, wakened by Nature’s sweet good- 
morning, leaped from the too fond embrace 
of Miss Yilda’s feather-bed. . . . And lo, a 
miracle ! . . . The woodbine clung close to 
the wall beneath his window. It was tipped 
with strong young shoots reaching out their 
innocent hands to cling to any support that 
offered ; and one baby tendril that seemed 
to have grown in a single night, so delicate 
it was, had somehow been blown to and fro 
by the sweet night wind, and, falling on the 
window-sill, had pushed Gay’s fairy shoe 
ever so little, and, curling lovingly round it, 
held it fast ! 


SCENE XL 


The Honeysuckle Porch, 

HISS VILDA DECIDES THAT TWO IS ONE TOO 
MANY, AND TIMOTHY BREAKS A HUMMING" 
bird’s EGG. 

It was a drowsy afternoon. The grass- 
hoppers chirped lazily in the warm grasses, 
and the toads blinked sleepily under the 
shadows of the steps, scarcely snapping at 
the flies as they danced by on silver wings. 
Down in the old garden the still pools, in 
which the laughing brook rested itself here 
and there, shone like glass under the strong 
beams of the sun, and the baby horned- 
pouts rustled their whiskers drowsily and 
scarcely stirred the water as they glided 
slowly through its crystal depths. 

The air was fragrant with the odor of 
new-mown grass and the breath of wild 
strawberries that had fallen under the sickle, 
to make the sweet hay sweeter with their 
crimson juices. The whir of the scythes 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


127 


and the clatter of the mowing-machine came 
from the distant meadows. Field mice and 
ground sparrows were aware that it proba- 
bly was all up with their little summer resi- 
dences, for haying time was at its height, 
and the Giant, mounted on the Avenging 
Chariot, would speedily make his appear- 
ance, and buttercups and daisies, tufted 
grasses and blossoming weeds, must all bow 
their heads before him, and if there was any- 
thing more valuable hidden at their roots, 
so much the worse ! 

And if a bird or a mouse had been es- 
pecially far-sighted and had located his fam- 
ily near a stump fence on a particularly un- 
even bit of ground, why, there was always a 
walking Giant going about the edges with a 
gleaming scythe, so that it was no wonder, 
when reflecting on these matters after a 
day’s palpitation, that the little denizens of 
the fields thought it very natural that there 
should be Nihilists and Socialists in the 
world, plotting to overturn monopolies and 
other gigantic schemes for crushing the 
people. 

Rags enjoyed the excitement of haying 
immensely. But then, his life was one long 
holiday now anyway, and the close quarters, 


128 


TIMOTHTS QUEST . 


scanty fare, and wearisome monotony of 
Minerva Court only visited his memory 
dimly when he was suffering the pangs of 
indigestion. For in the first few weeks of 
his life at the White Farm, before his ap- 
petite was satiated, he was wont to eat all 
the white cat’s food as well as his own ; and 
as this highway robbery took place in the 
retirement of the shed, where Samantha 
Ann always swept them for their meals, no 
human being was any the wiser, and only 
the angels saw the white cat getting whiter 
and whiter and thinner and thinner, while 
every day Rags grew more corpulent and 
aldermanic in his figure. But as his stom- 
ach was more favorably located than an 
alderman’s, he could still see the surround- 
ing country, and he had the further advan- 
tage of possessing four legs, instead of two, 
to carry it about. 

Timothy was happy, too, for he was a 
dreamer, and this quiet life harmonized well 
with the airy fabric of his dreams. He 
loved every stick and stone about the old 
homestead already, because the place had 
brought him the only glimpse of freedom 
and joy that he could remember in these 
last bare and anxious years ; and if there 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


129 


Were other and brighter years, far, far back 
in the misty gardens of the past, they only 
yielded him a secret sense of “ having 
been,” a memory that could never be cap- 
tured and put into words. 

Each morning he woke fearing to find his 
present life a vision, and each morning he 
gazed with unspeakable gladness at the 
sweet reality that stretched itself before his 
eyes as he stood for a moment at his little 
window above the honeysuckle porch. 

There were the cucumber frames (he 
had helped Jabe to make them) ; the old 
summer house in the garden (he had held 
the basket of nails and handed Jabe the 
tools when he patched the roof) ; the little 
workshop where Samantha potted her tomato 
plants (and he had been allowed to water 
them twice, with fingers trembling at the 
thought of too little or too much for the ten- 
der things) ; and the grindstone where Jabe 
ground the scythes and told him stories as 
he sat and turned the wheel, while Gay sat 
beside them making dandelion chains. Yes, 
it was all there, and he was a part of it. 

Timothy had all the poet’s faculty of in- 
terpreting the secrets that are hidden in 
every-day things, and when I13 lay prone on 


130 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


the warm earth in the cornfield, deep among 
the “ varnished crispness of the jointed 
stalks,” the rustling of the green things 
growing sent thrills of joy along the sensi- 
tive currents of his being. He was busy in 
his room this afternoon putting little parti- 
tions in some cigar boxes, where, very soon, 
two or three dozen birds’ eggs were to re- 
pose in fleece-lined nooks : for Jabe Slo- 
cum’s collection of three summers (every 
egg acquired in the most honorable manner, 
as he explained), had all passed into Timo- 
thy’s hands that very day, in consideration 
of various services well and conscientiously 
performed. What a delight it was to han- 
dle tne precious bits of things, like porcelain 
in their daintiness ! — to sort out the tender 
blue of the robin, the speckled beauty of 
the sparrow; to put the pee-wee’s and the 
thrush’s each in its place, with a swift throb 
of regret that there would have been an- 
other little soft throat bursting with a song, 
if some one had not taken this pretty egg. 
And there was, over and above all, the 
never ending marvel of the one humming- 
bird’s egg that lay like a pearl in Timothy’s 
slender brown hand. Too tiny to be stroked 
like the others, only big enough to be stealth- 


TIMOTEY'S QUEST. 


131 


ily kissed. So tiny that he must get out of 
bed two or three times in the night to see if 
it is safe. So tiny that he has horrible fears 
lest it should slip out or be stolen, and so he 
must take the box to the window and let the 
moonlight shine upon the fleecy cotton, and 
find that it is still there, and cover it safely 
over again and creep back to bed, wishing 
that he might see a “thumb’s bigness of 
burnished plumage” sheltering it with her 
speck of a breast. Ah ! to have a little 
humming-bird’s egg to love, and to feel that 
it was his very own, was something to Timo- 
thy, as it is to all starved human hearts full 
of love that can find no outlet. 

Miss Vilda was knitting, and Samantha 
was shelling peas, on the honeysuckle porch. 
It had been several days since Miss Cum- 
mins had gone to the city, and had come 
back no wiser than she went, save that she 
had made a somewhat exhaustive study of 
the slums, and had acquired a more inti- 
mate knowledge of the ways of the world 
than she had ever possessed before. She 
had found Minerva Court, and designated 
it on her return as a “ sink of iniquity,” 
to which Afric’s sunny fountains, India’s 
coral strand, and other tropical localities 


132 TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 

frequented by missionaries were virtuous in 
comparison. 

“ For you don’t expect anything of black 
heathens,” said she ; “ but there ain’t any 
question in my mind about the accountabil- 
ity of folks livin’ in a Christian country, 
where you can wear clothes and set up to an 
air-tight stove and be comfortable, to say 
nothin’ of meetin’-houses every mile or two, 
and Bible Societies and Young Men’s and 
Young Women’s Christian Associations, and 
the gospel free to all with the exception of 
pew rents and contribution boxes, and those 
omitted when it ’s necessary.” 

She affirmed that the ladies and gentle- 
men whose acquaintance she had made in 
Minerva Court were, without exception, a 
“ mess of malefactors,” whose only good 
point was that, lacking all human qualities, 
they did n’t care who she was, nor where 
she came from, nor what she came for ; so 
that as a matter of fact she had escaped 
without so much as leaving her name and 
place of residence. She learned that Mrs. 
Nancy Simmons had sought pastures new in 
Montana ; that Miss Ethel Montmorency 
still resided in the metropolis, but did not 
choose to disclose her modest dwelling-place 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


133 


to the casual inquiring female from the ru- 
ral districts; that a couple of children had 
disappeared from Minerva Court, if they re- 
membered rightly, but that there was no dis- 
turbance made about the matter as it saved 
several people much trouble ; that Mrs. Mor- 
rison had had no relations, though she pos- 
sessed a large circle of admiring friends; 
that none of the admiring friends had called 
since her death or asked about the children ; 
and finally that Number 3 had been turned 
into a saloon, and she was welcome to go in 
and slake her thirst for information with 
something more satisfactory than she could 
get outside. 

The last straw, and one that would have 
broken the back of any self-respecting (un- 
married) camel in the universe, was the of- 
fensive belief, on the part of the Minerva 
Courtiers, that the rigid Puritan maiden 
who was conducting the examination was 
the erring mother of the children, visiting 
(in disguise} their former dwelling-place. 
The conversation on this point becoming ex- 
tremely pointed and jocose, Miss Cummins 
finally turned and fled, escaping to the rail- 
way station as fast as her trembling legs 
could carry her. So the trip was a fruitless 


134 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


one, and the mystery that enshrouded Timo. 
thy and Lady Gay was as impenetrable as 
ever. 

“ I wish I ’d ’a’ gone to the city with you,” 
remarked Samantha. “ Not that I could 
’a’ found out anything more ’n you did, for 
I guess there ain’t anybody thereabouts that 
knows more ’n we do, and anybody ’t wants 
the children won’t be troubled with the re- 
lation. But I ’d like to give them bold- 
faced jigs ’n’ hussies a good piece o’ my 
mind for once ! You ’re too timersome, 
Yildy ! I b’lieve I ’ll go some o’ these days 
yet, and carry a good stout umbrella in my 
hand too. It says in a book somewhar’s that 
there ’s insults that can only be wiped out 
in blood. Ketch ’em hintin’ that I’m the 
mother of anybody, that ’s all ! I declare I 
don’ know what our Home Missionary So- 
cieties ’s doin’ not to regenerate them places 
or exterminate ’em, one or t’ other. Some- 
how our religion don’t take holt as it ought 
to. I j takes a burnin’ zeal to clean out 
them alum places, and burnin’ zeal ain’t the 
style nowadays. As my father used to 
say, • Religion ’s putty much like fish ’n’ per- 
tette- o ; if it ’s hot it ’s good, ’n’ if it ’s cold 
'tain i wuth a ’ — well, a short word come ia 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


185 


there, but I won’t say it. Speakin’ o’ reli- 
gion, I never had any experience in teaching 
but I did n’t s’pose there was any knack 
’bout teachin’ religion, same as there is 
’bout teachin’ readin’ ’n’ ’rithmetic, but I 
hed hard work makin’ Timothy understand 
that catechism you give him to learn the 
other Sunday.. He was all upsot with doc- 
trine when he come to say his lesson. Now 
you can’t scare some children with doctrine, 
no matter how hot you make it, or mebbe 
they don’t more ’n half believe it ; but 
Timothy ’s an awful sensitive creeter, V 
when he come to that answer to the question 
4 What are you then by nature ? ’ 4 An 

enemy to God, a child of Satan, and an heir 
of hell,’ he hid his head on my shoulder and 
bust right out cryin’. 4 How many Gods is 
there ? * s’ ’e, after a spell. 4 Land ! ’ thinks 
I, 4 1 knew he was a heathen, but if he turns 
out to be an idolater, whatever shall I do 
with him ! ’ 4 Why, where ’ve you ben fetched 
up ? ’ s’ I. 4 There ’s only one God, the High 
and Mighty Ruler of the Univarse,’ s’ I. 

4 Well,* s* ’e, ‘there must be more ’n one, 
for the God in this lesson is n’t like the one 
in Miss Dora’s book at all ! ’ Land sakes ! 
[ don’t want to teach catechism agin in a 


136 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


hurry, not tell I ’ve hed a little spiritual in- 
struction from the minister. The fact is, 
Yildy, that our b’liefs, when they ’re picked 
out o’ the Bible and set down square and 
solid ’thout any softening down ’n’ ex- 
plainin’ that they ain’t so bad as they sound, 
is too strong meat for babes. Now I ’m 
Orthodox to the core” (here she lowered 
her voice as if there might be a stray 
deacon in the garden), “ but ’pears to me if 
I was makin’ out lessons for young ones I 
would n’t fill ’em so plumb full o’ brimstun. 
Let ’em do a little suthin’ to deserve it ’fore 
you scare ’em to death, say I.” 

“Jabe explained it all out to him after 
supper. It beats all how he gets on with 
children,” said Miss Vilda. 

“ I ’d ruther hear how he explained it,” 
answered Samantha sarcastically. “ He 's 
great on expoundin’ the Scripters jest now. 
Weil, I hope it ’ll last. Land sakes ! you ’d 
think nobody ever experienced religion afore, 
he ’s so set up ’bout it. You ’d s’pose he 
kep’ the latch-key o’ the heavenly mansions 
right in his vest pocket, to hear him go on. 
He could n’t be no more stuck up ’bout it if 
he ’d ben one o’ the two brothers that come 
over in three ships ! ” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


137 


“ There goes Elder Nichols,” said Miss 
Vilda. “Now there ’s a plan we had n’t 
thought of. We might take the children 
over to Purity Village. I think likely the 
Shakers would take ’em. They like to get 
young folks and break ’em into their doc- 
trines.” 

“ Tim ’d make a tiptop Shaker,” laughed 
Samantha. “ He ’d be an Elder afore he 
was twenty -one. I can seem to see him 
now, with his hair danglin’ long in his neck, 
a blue coat buttoned up to his chin, and 
his hands see-sawin’ up ’n’ down, prancin’ 
round in them solemn dances.” 

“ Tim would do well enough, but I ain’t 
so sure of Gay. They ’d have their hands 
full, I guess!” 

“ I guess they would. Anybody that 
wanted to make a Shaker out o’ her would 
*a’ had to begin with her grandmother ; 
and that would n’t ’a’ done nuther, for 
they don’t b’lieve in marryin’, and the thing 
would ’a’ stopped right there, and Gay 
would n’t never ’a’ been born int’ the 
world.” 

“ And been a great sight better off,” in- 
terpolated Miss Vilda. 

44 Now don’t talk that way, Vildy. W ho 


138 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


knows what lays ahead o’ that child ? The 
Lord may be savin’ her up to do some great 
work for Him,” she added, with a wild 
flight of the imagination. 

“ She looks like it, don’t she ? ” asked 
Yilda with a grim intonation ; but her face 
softened a little as she glanced at Gay 
asleep on the rustic bench under the win- 
dow. 

The picture would have struck terror to 
the sad-eyed aesthete, but an artist who liked 
to see colors burn and glow on the canvas 
would have been glad to paint her : a lit- 
tle frock of buttercup yellow calico, bare 
neck and arms, full of dimples, hair that 
put the yellow calico to shame by reason of 
its tinge of copper, skin of roses and milk 
that dared the microscope, red smiling lips, 
one stocking and ankle-tie kicked off and 
five pink toes calling for some silly woman 
to say “ This little pig went to market ” on 
them, a great bunch of nasturtiums in one 
warm hand and the other buried in Rags, 
who was bursting with the white cat’s din- 
ner, and in such a state of snoring bliss 
that his tail wagged occasionally, even in his 
dreams. 

“She don’t look like a missionary, if that’s 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


139 


what you mean,” said Samantha hotly. “ She 
may not be called ’n’ elected to traipse over 
to Afriky with a Test’ment in one hand ’n ’ 
a sun umbreller in the other, savin’ souls 
by the wholesale ; but ’t ain’t no mean ser- 
vice to go through the world stealin’ into 
folks’ hearts like a ray o’ sunshine, ’n’ light- 
in’ up every place you step foot in t ” 

“ I ain’t sayin’ anything against the child, 
Samanthy Ann ; you said yourself she wa’n’t 
cut out for a Shaker ! ” 

“No more she is,” laughed Samantha, 
when her good humor was restored. “ She ’d 
like the singin’ ’n’ dancin’ well enough, 
but ’t would be hard work smoothin’ the 
kink out of her hair ’n’ fixin’ it under 
one o’ their white Sunday bunnets. She 
would n’t like livin’ altogether with the 
women-folks, nuther. The only way for 
Gay ’ll be to fetch her right up with the 
men-folks, ’n’ hev her see they ain’t no great 
things, anyway. Land sakes ! If ’t warn’t 
for dogs ’n’ dark nights, I should n’t care if 
I never see a man ; but Gay has ’em all on 
her string a’ready, from the boy that brings 
the cows home for Jabe to the man that 
takes the butter to the city. The tin ped- 
dler give her a dipper this mornin’, and the 


140 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


fish-man brought her a live fish in a tin 
pail. Well, she makes the house a great 
sight brighter to live in, you can’t deny that, 
Vildy.” 

“ I ain’t denyin’ anything in partic’ler. 
She makes a good deal of work, I know that 
much. And I don’t want you to get your 
heart set on one or both of ’em, for ’t won’t 
be no use. We could make out with one of 
’em, I suppose, if we had to, but two is one 
too many. They seem to set such store by 
one another that ’t would be like partin’ the 
Siamese twins ; but there, they ’d pine 
awhile, and then they ’d get over it. Any- 
how, they ’ll have to try.” 

“ Oh yes ; you can git over the small-pox, 
but you ’ll carry the scars to your grave 
most likely. I think ’t would be a sin to 
part them children. I would n’t do it no 
more ’n I ’d tear away that scarlit bean 
that ’s. twisted itself round ’n’ round that 
pink hollyhock there. I stuck a stick in 
the ground, and carried a string to the win- 
der ; but I did n’t git at it soon enough, the 
bean vine kep’ on growin’ the other way, 
towards the hollyhock. Then the other 
night I got my mad up, ’n’ I jest oncurled 
it by main force ’n’ wropped it round the 


TIMOTHY 9 S QUEST. 


141 


string, ’n,’ if you ’ll believe me, I Happened 
to look at it this mornin,’ ’n’ there it ’t was, 
as nippant as you please, coiled round the 
hollyhock agin ! Then says I to myself, 
‘ Samantha Ann Ripley, you ’ve known what 
? t was to be everlastin’ly hectored V inte- 
fered with all your life, now s’posin’ you let 
that bean have its hollyhock, if it wants it ! ’” 

Miss Yilda looked at her sharply as she 
said, “ Samantha Ann Ripley, I believe to 
my soul you ’re fussin’ ’bout Dave Milliken 
again ! ” 

“ W ell, I ain’t ! Every time I talk ’bout 
hollyhocks and scarlit beans I ain’t meanin’ 
Dave Milliken ’n’ me, — not by a long 
chalk ! I was only givin’ you my views 
’bout partin’ them children, that ’s all ! ” 

“ Well, all I can say is,” remarked Miss 
Yilda obstinately, “ that those that ’s desir- 
ous of takin’ in two strange children, and 
boardin’ and lodgin’ ’em till they get able 
to do it for themselves, and runnin’ the resk 
of their turnin’ out heathens and malefac- 
tors like the folks they came from, — can 
do it if they want to. If I come to see that 
the baby is too young to send away any- 
wheres I may keep her a spell, but the boy 
has got to go, and that ’s the end of it. 


142 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


You ’ve been crowdin’ me into a corner 
about him for a week, and now I ’ve said 
my say ! ” 

Alas! that tiny humming-bird’s egg was 
crushed to atoms, — crushed by a boy’s 
slender hand that had held it so gently for 
very fear of breaking it. For poor little 
Timothy Jessup had heard his fate for the 
second time, and knew that he must “ move 
on ” again, since there was no room for him 
at the White Farm* 


SCENE XII. 

The Village . 

LTDDY PETTIGROVE ’s FUNERAL. 

Lyddy Pettigrove was dead. Not one 
person, but a dozen, had called in at the 
White Farm to announce this fact and look 
curiously at Samantha Ann Ripley to see 
how she took the news. 

To say the truth, the community was not 
utterly overpowered by its bereavement. 
There seemed to be a general feeling that 
Mrs. Pettigrove had never been wanted in 
Pleasant River, coupled with a mild sur- 
prise that she should be desired anywhere 
else. Speculation was rife as to who would 
keep house for Dave Milliken, and whether 
Samantha Ann would now bury the Ripley- 
Milliken battle-axe and go to the funeral, 
and whether Mis’ Pettigrove had left her 
property to David, as was right, or to her 
husband’s sister in New Hampshire, which 
would be a sin and a shame, but jest as 


144 TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 

likely as not, though she was well off and 
did n’t need it no more ’n a toad would a 
pocket-book, and could n’t bear the sight o’ 
Lyddy besides, — and whether Mr. Petti- 
grove’s first wife’s relations would be asked 
to the funeral, bein’ as how they had n’t 
spoke for years, ’n’ would n’t set on the same 
side the meetin’-house, but when you come 
to that, if only the folks that was on good 
terms with Lyddy Pettigrove was asked to 
the funeral, there ’d be a slim attendance, 
and — so on. 

Aunt Hitty was the most important per- 
son in the village on these occasions. It 
was she who assisted in the last solemn 
preparations and took the last solemn 
stitches; and when all was done, and she 
hung her little reticule on her arm, and 
started to walk from the house of bereave- 
ment to her own home (where “ Si ” was 
anxiously awaiting his nightly draught of 
gossip), no royal herald could have been 
looked for with greater interest or greeted 
with greater cordiality. All the housewives 
that lived on the direct road were on their 
doorsteps, so as not to lose a moment, and 
all that lived off the road had seen her from 
the upstairs windows, and were at the gate 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


145 


to waylay her as she passed. At such a 
moment Aunt Hitty’s bosom swelled with 
honest pride, and she humbly thanked her 
Maker that she had been bred to the use of 
scissors and needle. 

Two days of this intoxicating popularity 
had just passed ; the funeral was over, and 
she ran in to the White Farm on her way 
home, to carry a message, and to see with 
her own eyes how Samantha Ann Ripley 
was comporting herself. 

“ You did n’t git out to the fun’ral, did 
ye, Samanthy ? ” she asked, as she seated 
herself cosily by the kitchen window. 

“No, I didn’t. I never could see the 
propriety o’ goin’ to see folks dead that you 
never went to see alive.” 

“ How you talk ! That ’s one way o’ put- 
tin’ it '. Well, everybody was lookin’ for 
you, and you missed a very pleasant fun’ral. 
David ’n’ I arranged everything as neat as 
wax, and it all went off like clock-work, if 
I do say so as should n’t. Mis’ Pettigrove 
made a beautiful remains.” 

“ I ’m glad to hear it. It ’s the first beau- 
tiful thing she ever did make, I guess ! ” 

“ How you talk ! Ain’t you a leetle hard 
on Lyddy, Samanthy ? She warn’t sech a 


146 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


bad neighbor, and she couldn’t help bein’ 
kind o’ sour like. She was born with her 
teeth on aidge, to begin with, and then she ’d 
ben through seas o’ trouble with them Petti- 
groves.” 

44 Like enough ; but even if folks has ben 
through seas o’ trouble, they need n’t be 
everlastin’ly spittin’ up salt brine. 4 Passin’ 
through the valley of sorrow they make it 
full o’ fountings ; ’ that ’s what the Psalms 
says ’bout bearin’ trouble.” 

“ Lyddy warn’t much on fountings,” said 
Aunt Hitty contemplatively ; 44 but, there , 
we had n’t ought to speak nothin’ but good 
o’ the dead. Land sakes ! You ’d oughter 
heard Elder W eekses remarks ; they was 
splendid. We ain’t hed better remarks to 
any fun’ral here for years. I should n’t ’a’ 
suspicioned he was preachin’ ’bou Lyddy, 
though. Our minister ’s sick abed, you 
know, ’n’ warn’t able to conduct the ex’cises. 
Si thinks he went to oed arpurpose, but I 
would n’t hev it repeated ; so David got 
Elder Weeks from Moderation. He warn’t 
much acquainted with the remains, but he 
done all the better for that. He ’s got a 
wond’ful faculty for fun’rals. They say 
he ’s sent for for miles around. He ’d just 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


147 


come from a fun’ral nine miles the other 
side o’ Moderation, up on the Blueb’ry road ; 
so he was a leetle mite late, ’n’ David ’n’ I 
was as nervous as witches, for every room 
was cram full ’n’ the thermometer stood at 
87 in the front entry, ’n’ the bearers sot out 
there by the well-curb, with the sun beatin’ 
down on ’em, ’n’ two of ’em, Squire Hicks 
’n’ Deacon Dunn, was fast asleep. Inside, 
everything was as silent ’s the tomb, ’cept 
the kitchen clock, ’n’ that ticked loud enough 
to wake the dead most. I thought I should 
go inter conniptions. I set out to git up ’n’ 
throw a shawl over it, it ticked so loud. 
Then, while we was all settin’ there ’s sol- 
emn ’s the last trump, what does old Aunt 
Beccy Burnham do but git up from the 
kitchen corner where she sot, take the corn- 
broom from behind the door, and sweep 
down a cobweb that was lodged up in one 
o’ the corners over the mantelpiece ! We 
all looked at one ’nother, ’n’ I thought for 
a second somebody ’d laugh, but nobody 
dassed, ’n’ there warn’t a sound in the room 
’s Aunt Beccy sot down agin’ without mov- 
in’ a muscle in her face. Just then the min- 
ister drove in the yard with his horse sweat- 
in’ like rain ; but behind time as he was, he 


148 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


never slighted things a mite. His prayer 
was twenty - three minutes by the clock. 
Twenty-three minutes is a leetle mite too 
long this kind o’ weather, but it was an all- 
embracin’ prayer, ’n’ no mistake ! Si said 
when he got through the Lord had his in- 
structions on most any p’int that was likely 
to come up durin’ the season. When he 
finished his remarks there warn’t a dry eye 
in the room. I don’t s’pose it made any 
odds whether he was preachin’ ’bout Mis’ 
Pettigrove or the woman on the Blueb’ry 
road, — it was a movin’, elevatin’ discourse, 
’n’ that was what we went there for.” 

“ It would n’t ’a’ ben so elevatin’ if he ’d 
told the truth,” said Samantha ; “ but, there, 
I ain’t goin’ to spit no more spite out. Lyddy 
Pettigrove ’s dead, ’n’ I hope she ’s in heaven, 
and all I can say is, that she ’ll be dretful 
busy up there ondoin’ all she done down 
here. You say there was a good many 
out ? ” 

“ Yes ; we ain’t hed so many out for years, 
so Susanna Rideout says, and she ’d ought to 
know, for she ain’t missed a fun’ral sence 
she was nine years old, and she ’s eighty-one, 
come Thanksgivin’, ef she holds out that 
long. She says fun’rals is ’bout the only 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


149 


recreation she has, ’n’ she doos git a heap 
o’ satisfaction out of ’em, ’n’ no mistake. 
She ’ll go early, afore any o’ the comp’ny as- 
sembles. She ’ll say her clock must ’a’ ben 
fast, ’n’ then they ’ll ask her to set down ’n’ 
make herself to home. Then she ’ll choose 
her seat accordin’ to the way the house is 
planned. She won’t git too fur from the 
remains, because she ’ll want to see how the 
fam’ly appear when they take their last look, 
but she ’ll want to git opp’site a door, where 
she can look into the other rooms ’n’ see 
whether they shed any tears when the min- 
ister begins his remarks. She allers takes 
a little gum camphire in her pocket, so ’t if 
anybody faints away durin’ the long prayer, 
she ’s right on hand. Bein’ near the door, 
she can hear all the minister says, ’n’ how 
the order o’ the mourners is called, ’n' ef 
she ain’t too fur from the front winders she 
can hev a good view of the bearers and the 
mourners as they get into the kerridges. 
There ’s a sight in knowin’ how to manage 
at a fun’ral ; it takes faculty, same as any- 
thing else.” 

“ How does David bear up ? ” asked Miss 
Vilda. 

“ Oh, he ’s calm. David was always calm 


150 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


and resigned, you know. He shed tears 
durin’ the remarks, but I s’pose, mebbe, he 
was wishin’ they was more appropriate. 
He’s about the forlornest creeter now you 
ever see in your life. There never was any 
self-assume to David Milliken. I declare 
it ’s enough to make you cry jest to look at 
him. I cooked up victuals enough to last 
him a week, but that ain’t no way for men- 
folks to live. When he comes in at noon- 
time he washes up out by the pump, ’n’ then 
he steps int’ the butt’ry ’n’ pours some cold 
tea out the teapot ’n’ takes a drink of it, ’n’ 
then a bite o’ cold punkin pie ’n’ then more 
tea, all the time stan’in’ up to the shelf ’stid 
o’ sittin’ down like a Christian, and lookin’ 
out the winder as if his mind was in Hard 
Scrabble ’n’ his body in Buttertown, ’n’ as 
if he did n’t know whether he was eatin’ pie 
or putty. Land ! I can’t bear to watch 
him. I dassay he misses Lyddy’s jawin’, 
— it must seem dretful quiet. I declare it 
seems to me that meek, resigned folks, 
that ’s too good to squeal out when they ’re 
abused, is allers the ones that gits the hard- 
est knocks ; but I don’t doubt but what 
there ’s goin’ to be an everlastin’ evenupness 
somewheres.” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


151 


Samantha got up suddenly and went to 
the sink window. “ It ’s ’bout time the men 
come in for their dinner,” she said. But 
though J abe was mowing the millstone hill, 
and though he wore a red flannel shirt, she 
could not see him because of the tears that 
blinded her eyes. 


SCENE xm. 

The Village. 

PLEASANT RIVER IS BAPTIZED WITH THE SPIRE! 

OF ADOPTION. 

“ But I did n’t come in to talk ’bout the 
fun’ral,” continued Aunt Hitty, wishing that 
human flesh were transparent so that she 
could see through Samanthy Ann Bipley’s 
back. “ I had an errant ’n’ oughter ben in 
afore, but I ’ve ben so busy these last few 
days I could n’t find rest for the sole o’ my 
foot skersely. I ’ve sewed in seven dif’rent 
houses sence I was here last, and I ’ve made 
it my biz’ness to try ’n’ stop the gossip ’bout 
them children ’n’ give folks the rights o’ the 
matter, ’n’ git ’em int’rested to do somethin’ 
for ’em. Now there ain’t a livin’ soul that 
wants the boy, but ” — 

“Timothy,” said Miss Yilda hurriedly, 
“ run and fetch me a passle of chips, that ’s 
a good boy. Land sakes, Aunt Hitty, you 
need n’t tell him to his face that nobody 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 153 

wants him. He ’s got feelin’s like any other 

child. ,, 

“He set there so quiet with a book in 
front of him I clean forgot he was in the 
room,” said Aunt Hitty apologetically. 
“ Land ! I ’m so tender-hearted I can’t set 
my foot on a June bug ’n’ ’t aint’ likely I ’d 
hurt anybody’s feelin’s, but as I was sayin’ 
I can’t find nobody that wants the boy, but 
the Doctor’s wife thinks p’raps she ’ll be wil- 
lin’ to take the baby ’n’ board her for noth- 
in’, if somebody else ’ll pay for her clothes. 
At least she ’ll try her a spell ’n’ see how she 
behaves, ’n’ whether she ’s good comp’ny for 
her own little girl that ’s a reg’lar limb o’ 
Satan anyway, ’n’ consid’able worse sence 
she ’s had the scarlit fever, ’n’ deef as a post 
too, tho’ they ’re blisterin’ her, ’n’ she may 
git over it. I told her I ’d bring Gay over 
to-night as I was cornin’ by, bein’ as how she 
was worn out with sickness ’n’ house-cleanin' 
*n’ one thing ’n’ nother, ’n’ could n’t come to 
git her very well herself. I thought mebbe 
you ’d be willin’ to pay for her clothes ruther 
’n hev so much talk ’bout it, tho’ I ’ve told 
everybody that they walked right in to the 
front gate, ’n’ you ’n’ Samanthy never set 
eyes on ’em before, ’n’ did n’t know where 
they come from.” 


154 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


Samantha wiped her eyes surreptitiously 
with the dishcloth and turned a scarlet face 
away from the window. Timothy was getting 
his “passle o’ chips.” Gay had spied him, and 
toddling over to his side, holding her dress 
above the prettiest little pair of feet that ever 
trod clover, had sat down on him (a favor- 
ite pastime of hers), and after jolting her fat 
little person up and down on his patient head, 
rolled herself over and gave him a series of 
bear-hugs. Timothy looked pale and lan- 
guid, Samantha thought, and though Gay 
waited for a frolic with her most adorable 
smile, he only lifted her coral necklace to 
kiss the place where it hung, and tied on her 
sun-bonnet soberly. Samantha wished that 
Yilda had been looking out of the window. 
Her own heart did n’t need softening, but 
somebody else’s did, she was afraid. 

“ I ’m much obliged to you for takin’ so 
much interest in the children,” said Miss 
Yilda primly, “ and partic’lerly for clearin’ 
our characters, which everybody that lives 
in this village has to do for each other ’bout 
once a week, and the rest o’ the time they 
take for spoilin’ of ’em. And the Doctor’s 
wife is very kind, but I should n’t think o’ 
sendin’ the baby away so sudden while the 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


155 


boy is still here. It would n’t be no kind- 
ness to Mis’ Mayo, for she ’d have a reg’lai 
French and Indian war right on her prem- 
ises. It was here the children came, just as 
you say, and it ’s our duty to see ’em settled 
in good homes, but I shall take a few days 
more to think ’bout it, and I ’ll let her know 
by Saturday night what we ’ve decided to do. 
— That’s the most meddlesome, inteferin’, 
gossipin’ woman in this county,” she added, 
as Mrs. Silas Tarbox closed the front gate, 
“ and I would n’t have her do another day’s 
work at this house if I did n’t have to. But 
it ’s worse for them that don’t have her than 
for them that does. — Now there ’s the Bap- 
tist minister drivin’ up to the barn. What 
under the canopy does he want ? Tell him 
Jabe ain’t to home, Samanthy. No, you 
need n’t, for he ’s hitched, and seems to be 
cornin’ to the front door.” 

“I never could abide the looks of him,” 
said Samantha, peering over Miss Vilda’s 
shoulder. “ No man with a light chiny blue 
eye like that oughter be allowed to go int 1 
the ministry ; for you can’t love your brother 
whom you hev seen with that kind of an eye, 
and how are you goin’ to love the Lord whom 
you hev not seen ? ” 


156 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


Mr. Southwick, who was a spare little man 
in a long linen duster that looked as if it had 
not been in the water as often as its wearer, 
sat down timidly on the settle and cleared 
his throat. 

“ I ’ve come to talk with you on a little 
matter of business, Miss Cummins. Brother 
Slocum has — a — conferred with me on the 
subject of a — a — couple of unfortunate 
children who have — a — strayed, as it were, 
under your hospitable roof, and whom — a 

— you are properly anxious to place — a — 
under other rooves, as it were. Now you are 
aware, perhaps, that Mrs. Southwick and I 
have no children living, though we have at 
times had our quivers full of them — a — as 
the Scripture says ; but the Lord gave and 
the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the 
name of the Lord! However, that is — a 

— neither here nor there. Brother Slocum 
has so interested us that my wife (who is 
leading the Woman’s Auxiliary Praying 
Legion this afternoon or she would have 
come herself) wishes me to say that she 
would like to receive one of these — a — 
little waifs into our family on probation, as 
it were, and if satisfactory to both parties, 
to bring it up — a — somewhat as our own, 
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


157 


Samantha waited, in breathless suspense. 
Miss Yilda never would fling away an oppor- 
tunity of putting a nameless, homeless child 
tinder the roof of a minister of the Gospel^ 
even if he was a Baptist, with a chiny blue 
eye. 

At this exciting juncture there was a clat- 
ter of small feet ; the door burst open, and 
the “ unfortunate waifs ” under considera- 
tion raced across the floor to the table where 
Miss Yilda and Samantha were seated. 
Gay’s sun-bonnet trailed behind her, every 
hair on her head curled separately, and she 
held her rag-doll upside down with entire 
absence of decorum. Timothy’s paleness, 
whatever the cause, had disappeared for the 
moment, and his eyes shone like stars. 

“ Oh, Miss Yilda ! ” he cried breathlessly ; 
“ dear Miss Yilda and Sam an thy, the gray 
hen did want to have chickens, and that is 
what made her so cross, and she is setting, 
and we ’ve found her nest in the alder 
bushes by the pond ! ” 

(“ G’ay hen’s net in er buttes by er 
pond,” sung Gay, like a Greek chorus.) 

“ And we sat down softly beside the pond, 
but Gay sat into it.” 

(“ Gay sat wite into it, an’ dolly dot her 


158 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


dess wet, but Gay nite ittle dirl ; Gay did n’t 
det wet ! ”) 

“ And by and by the gray hen got off to 
get a drink of water ” — 

(“ To det a dink o’ water ” — ) 

“ And we counted the eggs, and there 
were thirteen big ones ! ” 

(“ Fir-teen drate bid ones ! ”) 

“ So that the darling thing had to s-w-ell 
out to cover them up ! ” 

(“ Darlin’ fin ser-welled out an’ tuvvered 
’em up ! ”) said Gay, going through the 
same operation. 

“ Yes,” said Miss Yilda, looking covertly 
at Mr. Southwick (who had an eye for 
beauty, notwithstanding Samantha’s strict- 
ures), “ that ’s very nice, but you must n’t 
stay here now ; we are talkin’ to the minister. 
Run away, both of you, and let the settin’ 
hen alone. — Well, as I was goin’ to say, Mr. 
Southwick, you ’re very kind and so ’s your 
wife, and I ’m sure Timothy, that’s the boy’s 
name, would be a great help and comfort to 
both of you, if you ’re fond of children, and 
we should be glad to have him near by, for 
we feel kind of responsible for him, though 
he ’s no relation of ours. And we ’ll think 
about the matter over night, and let you 
know in the morning.” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


159 


“ Yes, exactly, I see, I see ; but it was the 
young child, the — a — female child, that my 
wife desired to take into her family. She 
does not care for boys, and she is particu- 
larly fond of girls, and so am I, very fond 
of girls — a — when they are children/’ 

Miss Yilda all at once made up her mind 
on one point, and only wished that Samantha 
would n’t stare at her as if she had never 
seen her before. “ I ’m sorry to disappoint 
your wife, Mr. Southwick. It seems that 
Mrs. Tar box and Jabez Slocum have been 
offerin’ the child to every family in the vil- 
lage, and I s’pose bime bye they ’ll have the 
politeness to offer her to me; but, at any 
rate, whether they do or not, I propose to 
keep her myself, and I ’d thank you to tell 
folks so, if they ask you. Mebbe you ’d 
better give it out from the pulpit, or you 
can let Mrs. Tarbox know, and that will 
answer the same purpose. This is the place 
the baby was brought, and this is the place 
she ’s goin’ to stay.” 

“ Yildy, you ’re a good woman ! ” cried 
Samantha, when the door closed on the Rev- 
erend Mr. Southwick. “I’m proud o’ you, 
Vildy, ’n’ I take back all the hard thoughts 
I ’ve ben hevin’ about you lately. The idee 


160 


TIMOTHY’S QUEST. 


o’ that chiny-eyed preacher thinkin’ he was 
goin’ to carry that child home in his buggy 
with hardly so much as sayin’ ‘ Thank you 
kindly, marm ! ’ I like his imperdence ! 
His wife hed better wash his duster aforo 
she adopts any children. If they ’d carry 
their theories ’bout immersion ’s fur as their 
close, ’t would n’t be no harm.” 

“ I don’ know as I ’d have agreed to keep 
either of ’em ef the whole village had n’t in- 
tefered and wanted to manage my business 
for me, and be so dretful charitable all of a 
sudden, and dictate to me and try to show 
me my duty. I have n’t had a minute’s 
peace for more ’n a fortnight, and now I 
hope they ’ll let me alone. I ’ll take the 
boy to the city to-morrow, if I live to see the 
light, and when I come back I ’ll tie up the 
gate and keep the neighbors out till this 
nine days’ wonder gets crowded out o’ their 
heads by somethin’ new.” 

“ You ’re goin’ to take Timothy to the city, 
are you ? ” asked Samantha sharply. 

“ That ’s what I ’m goin’ to do ; and the 
sooner the better for everybody concerned. 
Timothy, shut that door and run out to the 
barn, and don’t you let me see you again till 
supper-time ; do you hear me ? ” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 161 

“ And you ’re goin’ to put him in one o’ 
them Homes ? ” 

“Yes, I am. You see for yourself we 
can’t find any place fer him hereabouts.” 

“ Well, I ’ve ben waitin’ for days to see 
what you was goin’ to do, and now 1 ’ll tell 
you what I ’m goin’ to do, if you ’d like to 
know. I ’m goin’ to keep Timothy myself ; 
to have and to hold from this time forth and 
for evermore, as the Bible says. That ’s 
what I ’m goin’ to do ! ” 

Miss Cummins gasped with astonishment. 

“ I mean what I say, Yildy. I ain’t so 
well off as some, but I ain’t a pauper, not by 
no means. I ’ve ben layin’ by a little every 
year for twenty years, ’n’ you know well 
enough what for ; but that ’s all over for ever 
and ever, amen, thanks be! And I ain’t 
got chick nor child, nor blood relation in 
the world, and if I choose to take somebody 
to do for, why, it ’s nobody’s affairs but my 
own.” 

“ You can’t do it, and you sha’n’t do it ! ” 
said Miss Yilda excitedly. “ You ain’t goin* 
to make a fool of yourself, if I can help it. 
We can’t have two children clutterin’ up 
this place and eatin’ us out of house and 
home, and that ’s the end of it.” 


162 


TIMOTHY’S QUEST. 


“ It ain’t the end of it, Vildy Cummins, 
not by no manner o’ means ! If we can’t 
keep both of ’em, do you know what I think 
’bout it ? I think we ’d ought to give away 
the one that everybody wants and keep the 
other that nobody does want, more fools 
they ! That ’s religion, accordin’ to my way 
o’ thinkin’. I love the baby, dear knows ; 
but see here. Who planned this thing all 
out ? Timothy. Who took that baby up in 
his own arms and fetched her out o’ that den 
o’ thieves? Timothy. Who stood all the 
resk of gittin’ that innocent lamb out o’ that 
sink of iniquity, and hed wit enough to bring 
her to a place where she could grow up re- 
spectable? Timothy. And do you ketch 
him sayin’ a word ’bout himself from fust to 
last ? Not by no manner o’ means. That 
ain’t Timothy. And what doos the lovin’ 
gen’rous, faithful little soul git ? He gits his 
labor for his pains. He hears folks say 
right to his face that nobody wants him and 
everybody wants Gay. And if he didn’t 
have a disposition like a cherubim-an- 
seraphim (and better, too, for they 4 con- 
tinually do cry,’ now I come to think of it), 
he ’d be sour and selfish, ’stid o’ bein’ good 
as an angel in a picture-book from sun-up to 
sun-down ! ” 


TIMOTHY’S QUEST. 


163 


Miss Vilda was crushed by the overpower- 
ing weight of this argument, and did not even 
try to stem the resistless tide of Samantha’s 
eloquence. 

“ And now folks is all of a high to take 
in the baby for a spell, jest for a plaything, 
because her hair curls, ’n’ she ’s han’some, 
’n’ light complected, ’n’ lively, ’n’ a girl 
(whatever that amounts to is more ’n I 
know !), and that blessed boy is tread under 
foot as if he warn’t no better ’n an angle- 
worm! And do you mean to tell me you 
don’t see the Lord’s hand in this hull bus’- 
ness, Vildy Cummins ? There ’s other kinds 
o’ meracles besides buddin’ rods ’n’ burnin’ 
bushes ’n’ loaves ’n’ fishes. What do you 
s’pose guided that boy to pass all the other 
houses in this village V turn in at the 
White Farm ? Don’t you s’pose he was 
led? Well, I don’t need a Bible nor yit a 
concordance to tell me he was. He did n’t 
know there was plenty ’n’ to spare inside 
this gate ; a great, empty house ’n’ full cel- 
lar, ’n’ hay ’n’ stock in the barn, and cow- 
pons in the bank, ’n’ two lone, mis’able wo- 
men inside, with nothin’ to do but keep flies 
out in summer-time, ’n’ pile wood on in win- 
ter-time, till they got so withered up V 


164 


TIMOTHY 1 S QUEST. 


gnarly they warn’t hardly wuth getherin* 
int’ the everlastin’ harvest ! He did n’t 
know it, I say, but the Lord did ; ’n’ the 
Lord’s intention was to give us a chance to 
make our callin’ ’n’ election sure, ’n’ we 
can’t do that by turnin’ our backs on His 
messenger, and puttin’ of him ou’doors ! 
The Lord intended them children should 
stay together or He would n’t ’a’ started ’em 
out that way ; now that ’s as plain as the 
nose on my face, ’n’ that ’s consid’able plain 
as I ’ve ben told afore now, ’n’ can see for 
myself in the glass without any help from 
anybody, thanks be ! ” 

“ Everybody ’ll laugh at us for a couple o’ 
soft-hearted fools,” said Miss Vilda feebly, 
after a long pause. “We ’ll be a spectacle 
for the whole village.” 

“ What if we be ? Let ’s be a spectacle, 
then ! ” said Samantha stoutly. “ We ’ll be 
a spectacle for the angels as well as the vil- 
lage, when you come to that ! When they 
look down ’n’ see us gittin’ outside this door- 
yard ’n’ doin’ one o’ the Lord’s chores for 
the first time in ten or fifteen years, I guess 
they ’ll be consid’able excited ! But there ’s 
no use in talkin’, I ’ve made up my mind, 
Vildy. W e ’ve lived together for thirty 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


165 


years ’n’ ain’t hardly hed an ugly word (’n’ 
dretful dull it hez ben for both of us !), ’n’ 
1 sha’n’t live nowheres else without you tell 
me to go ; but I ’ve got lots o’ good work in 
me yit, ’n’ I ’m goin’ to take that boy up ’n’ 
give him a chance, V let him stay along- 
side o’ the thing he loves best in the world. 
And if there ain’t room for all of us in the 
fourteen rooms o’ this part o’ the house, 
Timothy ’n’ I can live in the L, as you ’ve 
allers intended I should if I got married. 
And I guess this is ’bout as near to gittin’ 
married as either of us ever ’ll git now, ’n* 
consid’able nearer ’n I ’ve expected to git, 
lately. And I ’ll tell Timothy this very 
night, when he goes to bed, for he ’s grievin’ 
himself into a fit o’ sickness, as anybody can 
tell ohat ’s got a glass eye in their heads I ” 


SCENE XIV. 


A Point of Honor, 

TIMOTHY JESSUP RUNS AWAY A SECOND TIME, 
AND, LIKE OTHER BLESSINGS, BRIGHTENS AS 
HE TAKES HIS FLIGHT. 

It was almost dusk, and J abe Slocum was 
struggling with the nightly problem of get- 
ting the cow from the pasture without any 
expenditure of personal effort. Timothy 
was nowhere to be found, or he would go 
and be glad to do the trifling service for 
his kind friend without other remuneration 
than a cordial “Thank you.” Failing Tim- 
othy there was always Billy Pennell, who 
would not go for a “Thank you,” being a 
boy of a sordid and miserly manner of 
thought, but who would go for a cent and 
chalk the cent up, which made it a more 
reasonable charge than would appear to the 
casual observer. So Jabe lighted his corn- 
cob pipe, and extended himself under a wil- 
low-tree beside the pond, singing in a cheer- 
ful fashion, — 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


167 


“ ‘ Tremblin’ sinner, calm your fears ! 
Pardon is always ready. 

Cease your sin and dry your tears, 
Pardon is always ready ! ’ ” 


“ And dretful lucky it is for you ! ” mut- 
tered Samantha, who had come to look for 
Timothy. “Jabe! Jabe ! Has Timothy 
gone for the cow ? ” 

“ Dunno. Jest what I was goin’ to ask 
you when I got roun’ to it.” 

“Well, how are you goin’ to find out?” 
“Find out by seem’ the cow if he hez 
gone, an’ by not seein’ no cow if he hain’t. 
I ’m comf’table either way it turns out. 
One o’ them writin’ fellers that was up 
here summerin’ said, ‘ They also serve who ’d 
ruther stan’ ’n’ wait ”d be a good motto for 
me, ’n’ he ’s about right when I ’ve ben 
hayin’. Look down there at the shiners, 
ain’t they cool ? Gorry ! I wish I was a fish ! ” 
“ If you was you would n’t wear your 
fins out, that ’s certain ! ” 

“ Come now, Samanthy, don’t be hard on 
a feller after his day’s work. Want me to 
git up ’n’ blow the horn for the boy ? ” 

“ No, thank you,” answered Samantha 
cuttingly. “ I would n’t ask you to spend 
your precious breath for fear you ’d be too 


168 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


lazy to draw it in agin. When I want to 
get anything done I can gen’ally spunk up 
sprawl enough to do it myself, thanks be l ” 

“ Wall now, Samanthy, you cheat the men- 
folks out of a heap o’ pleasure bein’ so all- 
fired independent, did ye know it ? 

“ * Tremblin’ sinner, calm your fears! 

Pardon is always ready.’ ” 

“ When ’d you see him last ? ” 

“ I hain’t seen him sence ’bout noon-time 
Warn’t he into supper?” 

“No. We thought he was off with you. 
Well, I guess he ’s gone for the cow, but I 
should think he ’d be hungry. It ’s kind 
o’ queer.” 

Miss Yilda was seated at the open win- 
dow in the kitchen, and Lady Gay was en- 
throned in her lap, sleepy, affectionate, tract- 
able, adorable. 

“ How would you like to live here at the 
White Farm, deary ? ” asked Miss Yilda. 

“ O, yet. I yike to yive here if Timfy 
doin’ to live here too. I yike oo, I yike 
Samfy, I yike Dabe, I yike white tat V 
white tow ’n’ white bossy ’n’ my boofely 
desses ’n’ my boofely dolly ’n’ er day hen 
*n’ I yikes evelybuddy ! ” 

“But you’d stay here like a nice little 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


169 


girl if Timothy had to go away, wouldn’t 
you?” 

“ No, I won’t tay like nite ittle dirl if 
Timfy do ’way. If Timfy do ’way, I do too. 
I ’s Timfy’s dirl.” 

“ But you ’re too little to go away with 
Timothy.” 

“Yen I ky an keam an kick an hold my 
bwef — I s’ow you how ! ” 

“ No, you need n’t show me how,” said 
Vilda hastily. “ Who do you love best, 
deary, Samanthy or me ? ” 

“ I yuv Timfy bet. Lemme twy rit-man* 
poor-man-bedder-man-fief on your buckalins, 
pease.” 

“ Then you ’ll stay here and be my little 
girl, will you ? ” 

“Yet, I tay here an’ be Timfy’s ittle dirl. 
Now oo p’ay by your own seff ittle while, 
Mit Yildy, pease, coz I dot to det down an 
find Samfy an’ put my dolly to bed coz 
she ’s defful seepy.” 

“ It ’s half past eight,” said Samantha 
coming into the kitchen, “ and Timothy ain’t 
nowheres to be found, and Jabe hain’t seen 
him sence noon-time.” 

“ You need n’t be scared for fear you ’ve 
lost your bargain,” remarked Miss Yilda 


170 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


sarcastically. “ There ain’t so many places 
open to the boy that he ’ll turn his back on 
this one, I guess ! ” 

Yet, though the days of chivalry were 
over, that was precisely what Timothy Jes- 
sup had done. 

Wilkins’s Wood was a quiet stretch of 
timber land that lay along the banks of 
Pleasant River ; and though the natives (for 
the most part) never noticed but that it was 
paved with asphalt and roofed in with oil- 
cloth, yet it was, nevertheless, the most 
tranquil bit of loveliness in all the country 
round. For there the river twisted and 
turned and sparkled in the sun, and “ bent 
itself in graceful courtesies of farewell ” to 
the hills it was leaving ; and kissed the vel- 
vet meadows that stooped to drink from its 
brimming cup ; and lapped the trees gently, 
as they hung over its crystal mirrors the 
better to see their own fresh beauty. And 
here it wound “ about and in and out,” 
laughing in the morning sunlight, to think 
of the tiny streamlet out of which it grew ; 
paling and shimmering at evening when it 
held the stars and moonbeams in its bosom ; 
and trembling in the night wind to think of 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 171 

the great unknown sea into whose arms it 
was hurrying. 

Here was a quiet pool where the rushes 
bent to the breeze and the quail dipped her 
wing ; and there a winding path where the 
cattle came down to the edge, and having 
looked upon the scene and found it all very 
good, dipped their sleek heads to drink and 
drink and drink of the river’s nectar. Here 
the first pink mayflowers pushed their sweet 
heads through the reluctant earth, and waxen 
Indian pipes grew in the moist places, and 
yellow violets hid themselves beneath their 
modest leaves. 

And here sat Timothy, with all his heart 
in his eyes, bidding good-by to all this soft 
and tender loveliness. And there, by his 
side, faithful unto death (but very much in 
hopes of something better), sat Rags, and 
thought it a fine enough prospect, but one 
that could be beaten at all points by a bit of 
shed-view he knew of, — a superincumbent 
hash-pan, an empty milk-dish, and an ema 
ciated white cat flying round a corner ! The 
remembrance of these past joys brought the 
tears to his eyes, but he forbore to let them 
flow lest he should add to the griefs of his 
little master, which, for aught he knew, 
might be as heavy as his own. 


172 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


Timothy was comporting himself, at this 
trying crisis, neither as a hero nor as a mar- 
tyr. There is no need of exaggerating his 
virtues. Enough to say, not that he was a 
hero, but that he had in him the stuff out 
of which heroes are made. Win his heart 
and fire his imagination, and there is no 
splendid deed of which the little fellow 
would not have been capable. But that he 
knew precisely what he was leaving behind, 
or what he was going forth to meet, would be 
saying too much. One thing he did know : 
that Miss Vilda had said distinctly that two 
was one too many, and that he was the ob- 
jectionable unit referred to. And in addi- 
tion to this he had more than once heard 
that very day that nobody in Pleasant River 
wanted him, but that there would be plenty 
of homes open to Gay if he were safely out 
of the way. A little allusion to a Home, 
which he caught when he was just bringing 
in a four-leafed clover to show to Samantha, 
completed the stock of ideas from which he 
reasoned. He was very clear on one point, 
and that was that he would never be taken ! 
alive and put in a Home with a capital H. 
He respected Homes, he approved of them, 
for other boys, but personally they were un- 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


173 


pleasant to him, and he had no intention o£ 
dwelling in one if he could help it. The 
situation did not appear utterly hopeless in 
his eyes. He had his original dollar and 
eighty-five cents in money ; Rags and he 
had supped like kings off wild blackberries 
and hard gingerbread ; and, more than all, 
he was young and mercifully blind to all 
but the immediate present. Yet even in 
taking the most commonplace possible view 
of his character it would be folly to affirm 
that he was anything but unhappy. His 
soul was not sustained by the consciousness 
of having done a self-forgetting and manly 
act, for he was not old enough to have such 
a consciousness, which is something the good 
God gives us a little later on, to help us 
over some of the hard places. 

“ Nobody wants me ! Nobody wants 
me ! ” he sighed, as he lay down under the 
trees. “ Nobody ever did want me, — I 
Wonder why ! And everybody loves my 
darling Gay and wants to keep her, and I 
don’t wonder about that. But, oh, if I 
only belonged to somebody ! (Cuddle up 
close, little Ragsy ; we ’ve got nobody but 
just each other, and you can put your head 
into the other pocket that has n’t got the 


174 


TIMOTHY' S QUEST, 


gingerbread in it, if you please !) If I only 
was like that little butcher’s boy that he lets 
ride on the seat with him, and hold the reins 
when he takes meat into the houses, — or if 
I only was that freckled-face boy with the 
straw hat that lives on the way to the store ! 
His mother keeps coming out to the gate 
on purpose to kiss him. Or if I was even 
Billy Pennell ! He ’s had three mothers 
and two fathers in three years, Jabe says. 
Jabe likes me, I think, but he can’t have me 
live at his house, because his mother is the 
kind that needs plenty of room, he says, — 
and Samanthy has no house. But I did 
what I tried to do. I got away from Mi- 
nerva Court and found a lovely place for 
Gay to live, with two mothers instead of 
one ; and maybe they ’ll tell her about me 
when she grows bigger, and then she ’ll know 
I did n’t want to run away from her, but 
whether they tell her or not, she ’s only a 
little baby, and boys must always take care 
of girls ; that ’s what my dream - mother 
whispers to me in the night, — and that ’s 
• . . what ...I’m always . . .” 

Come ! gentle sleep, and take this friend- 
less little knight-errant in thy kind arms! 
Bear him across the rainbow bridge, and lull 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


m 


him to rest with the soft plash of waves and 
sighing of branches ! Cover him with thy 
mantle of dreams, sweet goddess, and give 
him in sleep what he has never had ir 
waking ! 

Meanwhile, a more dramatic scene was 
being enacted at the White Farm. It was 
nine o’clock, and Samantha had gone from 
pond to garden, shed to barn, and gate to 
dairy, a dozen times, but there was no sign 
of Timothy. Gay had refused to be un- 
dressed till “ Timfy ” appeared on the prem- 
ises, but had fallen asleep in spite of the 
most valiant resolution, and was borne up- 
stairs by Samantha, who made her ready for 
bed without waking her. 

As she picked up the heap of clothes to 
lay them neatly on a chair, a bit of folded 
paper fell from the bosom of the little dress. 
She glanced at it, turned it over and over, 
read it quite through. Then, after retiring 
behind her apron a moment, she went swiftly 
downstairs to the dining-room where Miss 
Avilda and Jabe were sitting. 

“ There ! 99 she exclaimed, with a trium- 
phant sob, as she laid the paper down in 
front of the astonished couple. “ That ’s a 


176 


TIMOTHY' 8 QUEST . 


letter from Timothy. He ’s run away, ’n' 
I don’t blame him a mite ’n ’ I hope folks 
’ll be satisfied now they ’ve got red of the 
blessed angel, ’n’ turned him ou’doors with- 
out a roof to his head ! Read it out, ’n’ 
see what kind of a boy we ’ve showed the 
door to ! ” 

Dere Miss vilder and sermanthy. i 
herd you say i cood not stay here enny 
longer and other peeple sed nobuddy wood 
have me and what you sed about the home 
but as i do not like homes i am going to 
run away if its all the same to you. Please 
give Jabe back his birds egs with my love 
and i am sorry i broak the humming-bird’s 
one but it was a naxident. Pleas take 
good care of gay and i will come back and 
get her when I am ritch. I thank you very 
mutch for such a happy time and the white 
farm is the most butifull plase in the whole 
whirld. Tim. 

p. s. i wood not tell you if i was go- 
ing to stay but billy penel thros stones at 
the white cow witch i fere will get into her 
milk so no more from Tim. 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


177 


i am sorry not to say good by but i am 
afrade on acount of the home so i put them 
here. 



The paper fell from Miss Vilda’s trenu 
bling fingers, and two salt tears dropped 
into the kissing places. 

“ The Lord forgive me ! ” she said at 
length (and it was many a year since any 
one had seen her so moved). “The Lord 
forgive me for a hard-hearted old woman, 
and give me a chance to make it right. 
Not one reproachful word does he say to us 
about showin’ partiality, — not one ! And 
my heart has kind of yearned over that boy 
from the first, but just because he had Mar- 
thy’s eyes he kept bringin’ up the past to 
me, and I never looked at him without re- 
memberin' how hard and unforgivin’ I’d 


178 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


ben to her, and thinkin’ if I ’d petted and 
humored her a little and made life pleasanter, 
perhaps she ’d never have gone away. And 
I ’ve scrimped and saved and laid up money 
till it comes hard to pay it out, and when I 
thought of bringin’ up and schoolin’ two 
children I cal’lated I could n’t afford it ; and 
yet I ’ve got ten thousand dollars in the 
bank and the best farm for miles around. 
Samanthy, you bring my bonnet and shawl, 
— Jabe, you run and hitch up Maria, and 
we ’ll go after that boy and fetch him back if 
he ’s to be found anywheres above ground ! 
And if we come across any more o’ the same 
family trampin’ around the country, we ’ll 
bring them along home while we ’re about 
it, and see if we can’t get some sleep and 
some comfort out o’ life. And the Mission- 
ary Society must wait a spell for their legacy. 
There ’s plenty o’ folks that don’t get good 
works set right down in their front yards for 
’em to do. I ’ll look out for the individyals 
for a while, and let the other folks support 
the societies I ” 


SCENE XV. 


Wilkins's Woods. 

Like all dogs in fiction the faithful rags 

GUIDES MISS VILDA TO HIS LITTLE MASTER. 

Samantha ran out to the barn to hold the 
lantern and see that Jabe didn’t go to sleep 
while he was harnessing Maria. But he 
seemed unusually “ spry ” for him, although 
he was conducting himself in a somewhat 
strange and unusual manner. His loose fig- 
ure shook from time to time, as with severe 
chills ; he seemed too weak to hold up the 
shafts, and so he finally dropped them and 
hung round Maria’s neck in a sort of mild, 
gpeecldess convulsion. 

“ What under the canopy ails you, Jabe 
Slocum ? ” asked Samantha. “ I s’pose it ’s 
one o’ them everlastin’ old addled jokes o’ 
yourn you ’re tryin’ to hatch out, but it ’s a 
poor time to be jokin’ now. What ’s the 
matter with you ? ” 

“ 4 Ask me no questions ’n’ I ’ll tell you no 
lies,’ is an awful good motto,” chuckled Jabe, 


180 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


with a new explosion of mirth that stretched 
his month to an alarming extent. “Oh, 
there, I can’t hold in ’nother minute. I shall 
bust if I don’ tell somebody ! Set down on 
that nail kag, Samanthy, ’n’ I ’ll let you hev 
a leetle slice o’ this joke — if you ’ll keep it 
to yourself. You see I know — ’bout — 
whar — to look — for this here — runaway ! ” 

“ You hev n’t got him stowed away any- 
wheres, hev you ? If you hev, it ’ll be tho 
last joke you ’ll play on Yildy Cummins, I 
can tell you that much, Jabe Slocum.” 

“ No, I hain’t stowed him away, but I can 
tell putty nigh whar he ’s stowed hisself 
away, and I ’m ready to die a-laffin’ to see 
how it ’s all turned out jest as I suspicioned 
’t would. You see, Samanthy Ann, I thought 
’bout a week ago ’t would be well enough to 
kind o’ create a demand for the young ones 
so ’t they ’d hev some kind of a market value, 
and so I got Elder Southwick ’n’ Aunt Hitty 
kind o’ started on that tack, ’n’ it worked out 
slick as a whistle, tho’ they did n’t know I was 
usin’ of ’em as innercent instruments, and 
Aunt Hitty don’t need much encouragement 
to talk ; it ’s a heap easier for her to drizzle ’n 
it is to hold up 1 W ell, I ’ve ben surmisin’ for 
a week that the boy meant to run away, and 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


181 


to-day I was dead sure of it ; for he come to 
me this afternoon, when I was restin’ a spell 
on account o’ the hot sun, and he was awful 
low-sperrited, ’n’ he asked me every nam- 
able kind of a question you ever hearn tell 
of, and all so simple-minded that I jest 
turned him inside out ’thout his knowin’ 
what I was doin’. Well, when I found out 
what he was up to I could ’a’ stopped him 
then ’n’ there, tho’ I don’ know ’s I would 
anyhow, for I should n’t like livin’ in a ’sy- 
lum any better ’n he doos ; but thinks I to 
myself, thinks I, I ’d better let him run 
away, jest as he ’s a plannin’, — and why ? 
Cause it ’ll show what kind o’ stuff he ’s made 
of, and that he ain’t no beggar layin’ roun’ 
whar he ain’t wanted, but a self-respectin’ 
boy that ’s wuth lookin’ after. And thinks I, 
Samanthy ’n’ I know the wuth of him a’- 
ready, but there ’s them that hain’t waked up 
to it yit, namely, Miss Yildy Trypheny Cum- 
mins ; and as Miss Vildy Trypheny Cummins 
is that kind o’ cattle that can’t be drove, 
but hez to be kind o’ coaxed along, mebbe 
this runnin’-away bizness ’ll be the thing 
that ’ll fetch her roun’ to our way o’ think- 
in’. Now I would n’t deceive nobody for a 
farm down East with a pig on it, but thinks 


182 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


I, there ain’t no deceivin’ ’bout this. He 
don’ know I know he ’s goin’ to run away, 
so he ’s all square ; and he never told me 
nothin’ ’bout his plans, so I ’in all square; 
and Miss Vildy ’s good as eighteen-karat gold 
when she gets roun’ to it, so she ’ll be all 
square ; and Samanthy ’s got her blinders on 
’n’ don’t see nothin’ to the right nor to the 
left, so she ’s all square. And I ain’t intefer- 
in’ with nobody. I ’m jest lettin’ things go 
the way they ’ve started, ’n’ stan’in’ to one 
side to see whar they ’ll fetch up, kind o’ 
like Providence. I ’m leavin’ Miss Yildy a 
free agent, but I ’m shapin’ circumstances 
so ’s to give her a chance. But, land ! if I ’d 
fixed up the thing to suit myself I could n’t 
’a’ managed it as Timothy hez, ’thout know- 
in’ that he was managin’ anything. Look at 
that letter bizness now ! I could n’t ’a’ writ 
that letter better myself ! And the sperrit o’ 
the little feller, jest takin’ his dorg ’n’ light- 
in’ out with nothin’ but a perlite good-bye ! 
VYell I can’t stop to talk no more ’bout it 
aow, or we won’t ketch him, but we ’ll jest 
try Wilkins’s Woods, Maria, ’n’ see how that 
goes. The river road leads to Edgewood ’n 7 
Hillside, whar there ’s consid’able hayin’ be- 
in* done, as I happened to mention to Timo- 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


183 


thy this afternoon ; and plenty o’ blackberries 
’side the road, ’specially after you pass the 
wood-pile on the left-hand side, whar there ’s 
a reg’lar garding of ’em right ’side of an old 
hoss-blanket that ’s layin’ there ; one that I 
happened to leave there one time when I 
was sleepin’ ou’doors for my health, and 
that was this afternoon ’bout live o’clock, so 
I guess it hain’t changed its location sence.” 

Jabe and Miss Vilda drove in silence 
along the river road that skirted Wilkins’s 
Woods, a place where Jabe had taken Tim- 
othy more than once, so he informed Miss 
Yilda, and a likely road for him to travel if 
he were on his way to some of the near vil- 
lages. 

Poor Miss Yilda ! Fifty years old, and 
in twenty summers and winters scarcely one 
lovely thought had blossomed into lovelier 
deed and shed its sweetness over her arid 
and colorless life. And now, under the 
magic spell of tender little hands and inno- 
cent lips, of luminous eyes that looked wist- 
fully into hers for a welcome, and the touch 
of a groping helplessness that fastened upon 
her strength, the woman in her woke into 
life, and the beauty and fragrance of long- 
ago summers came back again as in a dream. 


184 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


After having driven three or four miles, 
they heard a melancholy sound in the dis- 
tance ; and as they approached a huge wood- 
pile on the left side of the road, they saw 
_a small woolly form perched on a little rise 
of ground, howling most melodiously at the 
August moon, that hung like a ball of red 
fire in the cloudless sky. 

“ That ’s a sign of death in the family, 
ain’t it, Jabe ? ” whispered Miss Yilda 
faintly. 

“ So they say,” he answered cheerfully ; 
“ but if ’t is, I can ’count for it, bein’ as how 
I fertilized the pond lilies with a mess o’ 
four white kittens this afternoon ; and as 
Rags was with me when I done it, he may 
know what he ’s bayin’ ’bout, — if ’t is Rags, 
’n’ it looks enough like him to be him, — ’n’ 
it is him, by Jiminy, ’n’ Timothy ’s sure to 
be somewheres near. I ’ll get out ’n’ look 
roun’ a little.” 

“ You set right still, Jabe, I ’ll get out 
myself, for if I find that boy I ’ve got some- 
thing to say to him that nobody can say for 
me.” 

As Jabe drew the wagon up beside the 
fence, Rags bounded out to meet them. He 
knew Maria, bless your soul, the minute he 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


185 


clapped his eyes on her, and as he ap- 
proached Miss Yilda’s congress boot his 
quivering whiskers seemed to say, “ Now, 
where have I smelled that boot before ? If 
I mistake not, it has been applied to me 
more than once. Ha ! I have it ! Miss 
Yilda Cummins of the White Farm, owner 
of the white cat and hash-pan, and com- 
panion of the lady with the firm hand, who 
wields the broom ! ” whereupon he leaped 
up on Miss Cummins’s black alpaca skirts, 
and made for her flannel garters in a way 
that she particularly disliked. 

“ Now,” said she, “ if he ’s anything like 
the dogs you hear tell of, he ’ll take us right 
to Timothy.” 

“ Wall, I don’ know,” said Jabe cau- 
tiously ; “ there ’s so many kinds o’ dorg in 
him you can’t hardly tell what he will do. 
When dorgs is mixed beyond a certain p’int 
it kind o’ muddles up their instincks, ’n’ you 
can’t rely on ’em. Still you might try him. 
Hold still, ’n’ see what he ’ll do.” 

Miss Yilda “ bold still,” and Rags jumped 
on her skirts. 

“ Now, set down, ’n’ see whar he ’ll go.” 

Miss Yilda sat down, and Rags went into 
her lap. 


186 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


“ Now, make believe start somewheres, V 
mebbe be ’ll get ahead ’n’ put you on the 
right track.” 

Miss Yilda did as she was told, and Rags 
followed close at her heels. 

“ Gorry ! I never see sech a fool ! — or 
wait, — I ’ll tell you what ’s the matter with 
him. Mebbe he ain’t sech a fool as he 
looks. You see, he knows Timothy wante 
to run away and don’t want to be found ’n* 
clapped into a ’sylum, ’n’ nuther does he. 
And not bein’ sure o’ your intentions, he 
ain’t a-goin’ to give hisself away ; that ’s the 
way I size Mr. Rags up ! ” 

“ Nice doggy, nice doggy ! ” shuddered 
Miss Yilda, as Rags precipitated himself 
upon her again. “ Show me where Timothy 
is, and then we ’ll go back home and have 
some nice bones. Run and find your little 
master, that ’s a good doggy ! ” 

It would be a clever philosopher who 
could divine Rags’s special method of logic, 
or who could write him down either as fool 
or sage. Suffice it to say that, at this mo' 
ment (having run in all other possible di 
rections, and wishing, doubtless, to keep on 
moving), he ran round the wood-pile ; and 
Miss Yilda, following close behind, came 


TIMOTEY'S QUEST. 


187 


upon a little figure stretched on a bit of gray 
blanket. The pale face shone paler in the 
moonlight ; there were traces of tears on the 
cheeks ; but there was a heavenly smile on 
his parted lips, as if his dream-mother had 
rocked him to sleep in her arms. Rags stole 
away to Jabe (for even mixed dogs have 
some delicacy), and Miss Vilda went down 
on her knees beside the sleeping boy. 

“ Timothy, Timothy, wake up ! ” 

No answer. 

“ Timothy, wake up ! I ’ve come to take 
you home ! ” 

Timothy woke with a sob and a start at 
that hated word, and seeing Miss Vilda at 
once jumped to conclusions. 

“ Please, please, dear Miss Vildy, don’t 
take me to the Home, but find me some 
other place, and I ’ll never, never run away 
from it ! ” 

“ My blessed little boy, I ’ve come to take 
you back to your own home at the White 
Farm.” 

It was too good to believe all at once. 
“ Nobody wants me there,” he said hesitat- 
ingly- 

“ Everybody wants you there,” replied 
Miss Vilda, with a softer note in her voice 


188 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


than anybody had ever heard there before. 
“ Samantha wants you, Gay wants you, and 
Jabe is waiting out here with Maria, for he 
wants you.” 

“ But do you want me ? ” faltered the 
boy. 

“ I want you more than all of ’em put to- 
gether, Timothy; I want you, and I need 
you most of all,” cried Miss Yilda, with the 
tears coursing down her withered cheeks ; 
“ and if you ’ll only forgive me for hurtm* 
your feelin’s and matin’ you run away, you 
shall come to the White Farm and be my 
own boy as long as you live.” 

“ Oh, Miss Yildy, darling Miss Yildy ! 
are we both of us adopted, and are we truly 
going to live with you all the time and never 
have to go to the Home ? ” Whereupon, the 
boy flung his loving arms round Miss Yil- 
da’s neck in an ecstasy of gratitude ; and in 
that sweet embrace of trust and confidence 
and joy, the stone was rolled away, once and 
forever, from the sepulchre of Miss Yilda’s 
heart, and Easter morning broke there. 


SCENE XVI. 

The New Homestead. 

TIMOTHY'S QUEST IS ENDED, AND SAMANTHA 
SAYS “ COME ALONG, DAVE ! ” 

“ «T abe Slocum ! Do you know it ’s goin’ 
on six o’clock ’n’ not a single chore done 
yet?” 

Jabe yawned, turned, over, and listened to 
Samantha’s unwelcome voice, which (consid- 
erably louder than the voice of conscience) 
came from the outside world to disturb his 
delicious morning slumbers. 

“ Jabe Slocum ! Do you hear me ? ” 

“Hear you? Gorry ! you’d wake the 
seven sleepers if they was any whar within 
ear-shot ! ” 

“ Well, will you git up ? ” 

“ Yes, I ’ll git up if you ’re goin’ to hev a 
brash ’bout it, but I wish you hed n’t waked 
me so awful suddent. Don’t ontwist the 
mornin’ glory ’ ’s my motto. Wait a spell V 
the sun ’ll do it, ’n’ save a heap o’ wear ’n’ 
tear besides. Go ’long 1 I ’ll git up.” 


190 


TIMOTHY '8 QUEST. 


“ I ’ve heerd that story afore, V I won’t 
go ’long tell I hear you step foot on the 
floor.” 

“ Scoot ! I tell yer I ’ll he out in a jiffy.” 

“ Yes, I think I see yer. Your jiffies are 
consid’able like golden opportunities, there 
ain’t more ’n one of ’em in a lifetime ! ” and 
having shot this Parthian arrow Samantha 
departed, as one having done her duty in 
that humble sphere of action to which it 
had pleased Providence to call her. 

These were beautiful autumn days at the 
White Farm. The orchards were gleaming, 
the grapes hung purple on the vines, and the 
odor of ripening fruit was in the hazy air. 
The pink spirea had cast its feathery petals 
by the gray stone walls, but the welcome 
golden-rod bloomed in royal profusion along 
the brown waysides, and a crimson leaf hung 
here and there in the treetops, just to give 
a hint of the fall styles in color. Heaps of 
yellow pumpkins and squashes lay in the 
corners of the fields ; cornstalks bowed their 
heads beneath the weight of ripened ears ; 
beans threatened to burst through their yel- 
low pods ; the sound of the threshing ma- 
chine was heard in the land ; and the “ hull 
univarse wanted to be waited on to once,” 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 191 

according to Jabe Slocum; for, as be af- 
firmed, “ Yer could n’t ketch up with your 
work nohow, for if yer set up nights V 
worked Sundays, the craps ’d ripen ’n’ go 
to seed on yer ’fore yer could git ’em hai 
vested ! ” 

And if there was peace and plenty with* 
out there was quite as much within doors. 

“ I can’t hardly tell what ’s the matter with 
me nowadays,” said Samantha Ann to Miss 
Yilda, as they sat peeling and slicing apples 
for drying. “ My heart has felt like a stun 
these last years, and now all to once it ’s so 
soft I ’m ashamed of it. Seems to me there 
never was such a summer ! The hay never 
smelt so sweet, the birds never sang so well, 
the currants never jelled so hard ! Why I 
can’t kick the cat, though she ’s more ever- 
lastin’ly under foot ’n ever, ’n’ pretty soon I 
sha’n’t even have sprawl enough to jaw Jabe 
Slocum. I b’lieve it ’s nothin’ in the world 
but them children ! They keep a runnin’ af- 
ter me, ’n’ it ’s dear Samanthy here, ’n’ dear 
Samanthy there, jest as if I warn’t a hombly 
old maid ; ’n’ they take holt o’ my hands on 
both sides o’ me, ’n’ won’t stir a step tell I go 
to see the chickens with ’em, ’n’ the pig, ’n’ 
one thing V ’nother, V clappin’ their hands 


192 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


when I make ’em gingerbread men ! And 
that reminds me, I see the school-teacher 
goin’ down along this mornin,’ ’n’ I run out 
to see how Timothy was gittin’ along in his 
studies. She says he ’s the most ex-tra-ordi- 
nary scholar in this deestrick. She says he 
takes holt of every book she gives him jest 
as if ’t was reviewin’ ’stid o’ the first time 
over. She says when he speaks pieces, Fri- 
day afternoons, all the rest o’ the young ones 
set there with their jaws hangin,’ ’n’ some of 
’em laughin’ ’n’ cryin’ ’t the same time. She 
says we ’d oughter see some of his comp’si- 
tions, ’n’ she ’ll show us some as soon as she 
gits ’em back from her beau that works at 
the Water bury Watch Factory, and they ’re 
goin’ to be married ’s quick as she gits 
money enough saved up to buy her weddin’ 
close ; ’n’ I told her not to put it off too long 
or she ’d hev her close on her hands, ’stid of 
her back. She says Timothy ’s at the head 
of the hull class, but, land ! there ain’t a boy 
in it that knows enough to git his shirt on 
right sid’ out. She ’s a splendid teacher, 
Miss Boothby is ! She tells me the seeleck 
men hev raised her pay to four dollars a 
week ’n’ she to board herself, ’n’ she ’s wuth 
every cent of it. I like to see folks well paid 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


193 


that ’s got the patience to set in doors V 
cram information inter young ones that don’t 
care no more ’bout learnin’ ’n’ a skunk-black- 
bird. She give me Timothy’s writin’ book 
for you to see what he writ in it yesterday, 
’n’ she hed to keep him in ’t recess ’cause he 
did n’t copy ‘ Go to the ant thou sluggard and 
, be wise,’ as he ’d oughter. Now let ’s see what 
’t is. My grief ! it s poetry sure ’s you ’re 
born. I can tell it in a minute ’cause it don’t 
come out to the aidge o’ the book one side or 
the other. Read it out loud, Yildy.” 

Oh ! the White Farm and the White Farm ! 

I love it with all my heart ; 

And I ’m to live at the White Farm, 

Till death it do us part.’ ” 

Miss Yilda lifted her head, intoxicated 
with the melody she had evoked. “ Did you 
ever hear anything like that,” she exclaimed 
proudly. 

“ ‘ Oh ! the White Farm and the White Farm! 

I love it with all my heart ; 

An d I ’m to live at the White Farm, 

Till death it do us part.’ ” 

“ Just hear the sent’ment of it, and the 
way it sings along like a tune. I ’m goin’ 
to show that to the minister this very night, 
and that boy ’s got to have the best educa- 


194 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


tion there is to be had if we have to mort- 
gage the farm.” 

Samantha Ann was right. The old home- 
stead wore a new aspect these days, and a 
love of all things seemed to have crept into 
the hearts of its inmates, as if some benefi- 
cent fairy of a spider were spinning a web 
of tenderness all about the house, or as if a 
soft light had dawned in the midst of great 
darkness and was gradually brightening 
into the perfect day. 

In the midst of this new-found gladness 
and the sweet cares that grew and multiplied 
as the busy days went on, Samantha’s appe- 
tite for happiness grew by what it fed upon, 
so that before long she was a trifle grieved 
that other people (some more than others) 
were not as happy as she ; and Aunt Hitty 
was heard to say at the sewing-circle (which 
had facilities for gathering and disseminat- 
ing news infinitely superior to those of the 
Associated Press), that Samantha Ann Rip- 
ley looked so peart and young this summer, 
Dave Milliken had better spunk up and try 
again. 

But, alas! the younger and fresher and 
happier Samantha looked, the older and 
sadder and meeker David appeared, till all 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


195 


hopes of his “ spunking up ” died out of the 
village heart 5 and, it might as well be stated, 
out of Samantha’s also. She always thought 
about it at sundown, for it was at sundown 
that all their quarrels and reconciliations 
had taken place, inasmuch as it was the only 
leisure time for week-day courting at Pleas- 
ant River. 

It was sundown now; Miss Yilda and 
Jabez Slocum had gone to Wednesday even- 
ing prayer-meeting, and Samantha was look- 
ing for Timothy to go to the store with her 
on some household errands. She had seen 
the children go into the garden a half hour 
before, Timothy stepping gravely, with his 
book before him, Gay blowing over the grass 
like a feather, and so she walked towards 
the summer-house. 

Timothy was not there, but little Lady 
Gay was having a party all to herself, and 
the scene was such a pretty one that Sa* 
mantha stooped behind the lattice and lis- 
tened. 

There was a table spread for four, with 
bits of broken china and shells for dishes, 
and pieces of apple and gingerbread for 
the feast. There were several dolls present 
(notably one without any head, who was not 


196 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


likely to shine at a dinner party), but Gay’s 
first-born sat in her lap ; and only a mother 
could have gazed upon such a battered thing 
and loved it. For Gay took her pleasures 
madly, and this faithful creature had shared 
them all ; but not having inherited her mo* 
ther’s somewhat rare recuperative powers, 
she was now fit only for a free bed in a 
hospital, - — a state of mind and body which 
she did not in the least endeavor to conceal. 
One of her shoe-button eyes dangled by a 
linen thread in a blood-curdling sort of way ; 
her nose, which had been a pink glass bead, 
was now a mere spot, ambiguously located. 
Her red worsted lips were sadly raveled, but 
that she did not regret, “ for it was kissin’ 
as done it.” Her yarn hair was attached 
to her head with safety-pins, and her in- 
ternal organs obtruded themselves on the 
public through a gaping wound in the side. 
Never mind! if you have any curiosity to 
measure the strength of the ideal, watch a 
child with her oldest doll. Rags sat at the 
head of the dinner-table, and had taken the 
precaution to get the headless lady on his 
right, with a view to eating her gingerbread 
as well as his own, — doing no violence to 
the proprieties in this way, but rather con* 
cealing her defects from a carping public. 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


197 


“ I tell you sompfin’ ittle Mit Yildy Tum- 
mins,” Gay was saying to her battered off- 
spring. “You’s doin’ to have a new ittle 
sit-ter to-mowowday, if you ’s a dood ittle 
dirl an does to seep nite an kick, you ser- 
weet ittle Yildy Tummins ! (All this punctu- 
ated with ardent squeezes fraught with deli- 
cious agony to one who had a wound in her 
side !) “ Yay fink you ’s worn out, ’weety, 

but we know you is n’t, don’ we, ’weety ? 
An I’ll tell you nite ittle tory to-night, 
tause you isn’t seepy. Wunt there was a 
ittle day hen ’at tole a net an’ laid fir-teen 
waw edds in it, an bime bye erleven or sev- 
enteen ittle chits f’ew out of ’em, an Mit Yil- 
dy ’dopted ’em all ! I n’t that a nite tory, 
you ser-weet ittle Mit Yildy Tummins ? ” 
Samantha hardly knew why the tears 
should spring to her eyes as she watched the 
dinner party, — unless it was because we can 
scarcely look at little children in their un- 
conscious play without a sort of sadness, 
partly of pity and partly of envy, and of 
longing too, as for something lost and gone. 
And Samantha could look back to the time 
when she had sat at little tables set with 
bits of broken china, yes, in this very sum- 
aier-house, and pretty Martha was always so 


198 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST, 


gay, and David used to laugh so! “But 
there was no use in tryin’ to make folks any 
dif’rent, ’specially if they was such nat’ral 
born fools they could n’t see a hole in a 
grindstun ’thout hevin’ it hung on their 
noses ! ” and with these large and charitable 
views of human nature, Samantha walked 
back to the gate, and met Timothy as he 
came out of the orchard. She knew then 
what he had been doing. The boy had cer- 
tain quaint thoughts and ways that were at 
once a revelation and an inspiration to these 
two plain women, and one of them was this. 
To step softly into the side orchard on pleas- 
ant evenings, and without a word, before or 
afterwards, to lay a nosegay on Martha’s 
little white doorplate. And if Miss Yilda 
chanced to be at the window he would give 
her a confidential smile, as much as to say, 
“We have no need of words, we two!” 
And Yilda, like one of old, hid all these do- 
ings in her heart of hearts, and loved the 
boy with a love passing knowledge. 

Samantha and Timothy walked down the 
hill to the store. Yes, David Milliken was 
sitting all alone on the loafer’s bench at the 
door, and why was n’t he at prayer-meetin ; 
where he ought to be ? She was glad she 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST . 


199 


chanced to have on her clean purple calico, 
and that Timothy had insisted on putting a 
pink Ma’thy Washington geranium in her 
collar, for it was just as well to make folks’ 
mouth water whether they had sense enough 
to eat or not. 

“ Who is that sorry-looking man that al- 
ways sits on the bench at the store, Sa- 
manthy ? ” 

“ That ’s David Milliken.” 

“ Why does he look so sorry, Samanthy ? ” 

“ Oh, he ’s all right. He likes it fust- 
rate, wearin’ out that hard bench settin’ on 
it night in V night out, like a bump on a 
log ! But, there, Timothy, I ’ve gone ’n’ 
forgot the whole pepper, V we ’re goin’ to 
pickle seed cowcumbers to-morrer. You 
take the lard home ’n’ put it in the cold 
room, V ondress Gay ’n’ git her to bed, for 
I ’ve got to call int’ Mis’ Mayhew’s goin’ 
along back.” 

It was very vexatious to be obliged to pass 
David Milliken a second time ; “ though 
there warn’t no sign that he cared anything 
about it one way or ’nother, bein’ blind as a 
bat, ’n’ deef as an adder, ’n’ dumb as a fish, 
’n’ settin’ stockstill there with no coat on, 
V the wind blowin’ up for rain, ’n’ four o’ 


200 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


the Millikens layin’ in the churchyard with 
gallopin’ consumption.” It was in this 
frame of mind that she purchased the whole 
pepper, which she could have eaten at that 
moment as calmly as if it had been marrow- 
fat peas ; and in this frame of mind she 
might have continued to the end of time had 
it not been for one of those unconsidered 
trifles that move the world when the great 
forces have given up trying. As she came 
out of the store and passed David, her eye 
fell on a patch in the flannel shirt that cov- 
ered his bent shoulders. The shirt was gray 
and (oh, the pity of it !) the patch was red ; 
and it was laid forlornly on outside, and 
held by straggling stitches of carpet thread 
put on by patient, clumsy fingers. That 
patch had an irresistible pathos for a wo- 
man ! 

Samantha Ann Ripley never exactly knew 
what happened. Even the wisest of down- 
East virgins has emotional lapses once in a 
while, and she confessed afterwards that her 
heart riz right up inside of her like a yeast 
cake. Mr. Berry, the postmaster, was in the 
back of the store reading postal cards. Not 
a soul was in sight. She managed to get 
down over the steps, though something with 


TIMOTHY'S QUEST. 


201 


the strength of tarred ship-ropes was draw- 
ing her back; and then, looking over her 
shoulder with her whole brave, womanly 
heart in her swimming eyes, she put out her 
hand and said, “ Come along, Dave ! ” 

And David straightway gat him up from 
the loafer’s bench and went unto Samantha 
gladly. 

And they remembered not past unhappi- 
ness because of present joy; nor that the 
chill of coming winter was in the air, be- 
cause it was summer in their hearts: and 
this is the eternal magic of love. 



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